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What is hook rate?
Hook rate is the share of ad impressions where people watched at least the first three seconds of a video. On Meta it's usually calculated as 3-second video plays divided by impressions. It measures whether your opening stops the scroll, not whether the ad sells, so judge sales on cost per purchase.
Also answers: What is thumbstop ratio?
The formula
Hook rate = 3-second video plays ÷ impressions × 100
For example, 3,000 three-second plays from 10,000 impressions is a 30% hook rate.
Hook rate vs thumbstop ratio
They're the same metric under two names. "Thumbstop" describes what it measures: how often your opening makes someone stop their thumb mid-scroll. Some teams use a different threshold, such as 2 seconds, so check how a benchmark defines it before comparing.
What it tells you, and what it doesn't
- It tells you whether the first frame, line and on-screen text earn attention.
- It doesn't tell you whether the ad sells. A shocking hook can stop many people and convert none of them.
Use it to compare openings and to diagnose why an ad isn't spending, then decide on cost per purchase.
Related metrics
- Hold rate: how many who passed the hook kept watching, often ThruPlays ÷ 3-second plays.
- Click-through rate: whether the ad created enough interest to click.
- Cost per purchase / ROAS: whether it made money.
Practitioner ranges for a "good" hook rate are on our good hook rate page (AdManage).
Every ad we deliver at ScrollStop Labs comes with alternate opening hooks, so you can run this kind of test without a reshoot.