Are your videos thumb stopping?

Do they have the right hooks?

To find out, calculate the hook rate.

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Hook rate is the percentage of video views that watch to a specific duration (or more). A.k.a. the percentage of viewers that got "hooked."
the equation Hook rate = # of views of X length / # of impressions for the video overlaid on an emoji of a fish hooked on a fishing pole


Solve for X

How do you pick a video length?

The easiest answer is that you go with what each platform gives you.

The current standard set by the Interactive Advertising Bureau is 2 seconds (I think this used to be 3 seconds), which makes it a common metric across platforms.

Meta reports on 2 second views (or at least has columns for it), 3 seconds, and ThruPlays—which are views up to 15 seconds (either entire video or 15 seconds if longer). You can optimize for 2 second views or 15 second thruplays.

TikTok reports on 2 second views and 6 second focused views. You optimize for focused views.

Pinterest reports on 2 second and 3 second video views. Bidding based on 2 second views.

LinkedIn reports on 2 second views. Or a click. Whichever comes first.

Google / YouTube counts a view as a duration up to 30 seconds depending on the length of the video. Anything shorter than 30 seconds counts a full play as a view. Clicking the video ad also counts as a view. And viewability is based on 1-2 second views depending on type. Honestly, a bit messy.

I do wish 5 second views was an easy-to-pull metric as this is the cutoff frequently cited by these platforms. Most best practices talk about what you need to include in the first 5 seconds. But they didn't ask me what should be in the reporting view, so oh well.

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If comparing across social platforms, 2 second views is the metric to use in your numerator.

What's Good?

Every decision maker's favorite question and every analyst's least favorite.

The short answer: it depends!

The best approach would be to develop an internal baseline and then start keeping an eye out for outliers, good and bad.

But let’s say ~25%. Because that’s a nice round number that falls in line with this benchmark analysis.

Get Hooked Up

As with most metrics, hook rate is useless in a vacuum.

Here are a few use cases I can think of to incorporate hook rate into your strategic analytics toolbox:

  • Compare hook rates across platforms to identify high performers and those that may need different creative to succeed.
  • Compare videos within a platform to see what hooks viewers the most and adjust your (platform-specific) creative strategy accordingly.
  • Monitor hook rate for each video over time to determine when effectiveness is waning and creative fatigue may be setting in.
  • Determine if there is a correlation between hook rate and business goal performance.
  • For A/B testing, of course.

To Review

Hook rate is the number of video views of a certain length divided by the number of impressions that video delivered.

As an example, a client's Meta account has a video with 6,902 3-second views so far this month on 15,970 impressions.

6,902 / 15,970 = 43% hook rate

Go forth and measure!

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