The first 2 seconds: video ad hooks that stop the scroll

The hook is the first two or three seconds of a video ad, the part that makes someone stop scrolling instead of flicking past. Everything else in the ad depends on it, because nothing after the hook gets seen by the people who left. This post is about writing one: why the window is so short, seven kinds of hook that work, how to make one work with the sound off, and what kills one. Our video ads page covers the rest of a social ad; this is the opening.

Why two seconds

Feeds are built for leaving. A thumb moves before a thought does, so an ad has to earn its second second. The platforms say so in their own words. TikTok's creative guidance asks for the proposition in the first 3 seconds and the hook within the first 6, and recommends a do-it-yourself look that blends into the feed. Google's guidance for YouTube ads is built on four letters, ABCD: attract from the very start, brand early, connect with the viewer, direct them to act.

Neither platform says "two seconds." That number is industry practice, the point by which most people have decided whether to stay, and it is a useful target because it is uncomfortable. If your hook needs four seconds to land, it is not a hook yet.

Seven hook types, one example line each

Each of these can be a shot, a line of text on screen, or both. The examples are made up.

1. The problem moment. Show the pain before you name anything. A desk buried in sticky notes. "Forty-one tabs. One brain."
2. The pattern break. Something the eye cannot place for a second: an extreme close-up, an odd angle, an object mid-action. A bottle pouring upward.
3. The bold question. Short, on screen and spoken. "Why does your invoice take nine clicks?"
4. Before and after. The split screen, the swipe, the reveal. A cluttered calendar, then an empty one.
5. "Stop doing this." A direct instruction that names a habit. "Stop screenshotting your receipts."
6. The number or the price. A fact that is surprising on its own. "Twelve minutes a day. That is what the average team spends looking for files." (Only if it is true and yours.)
7. The product in motion. The thing itself, big and close, doing the one thing it does. A click, a pour, a page clearing.

Write five hooks for every ad and keep the one you would stop for yourself. The honest test is your own thumb.

Sound off: the hook has to work muted

Many people watch feeds with the sound off, so a hook that lives in the voice-over is a hook that half your viewers never hear. Three fixes.

• Text on screen. Put the hook in large type, two to four words per caption block, high contrast, in the middle of the frame.
• Let the picture do the work. A problem moment or a product in motion needs no words. If the first shot is a person talking, show what they are talking about instead.
• Captions from the first frame. Word-for-word captions on every spoken line, so a muted viewer can follow the whole ad, not only the hook.

Sound still matters for the people who have it on. A sharp sound on the first cut and music that starts on the hook are cheap ways to make the first second feel like a beginning.

Picture, words and sound land together

The strongest hooks say the same thing three ways at once: the picture shows the problem, the text names it, and the sound marks it. The weakest hooks split them: a pretty opening shot, a text line about something else, and a voice still clearing its throat.

A simple test when you storyboard (a storyboard is the shot-by-shot plan with a picture for each shot): read the first shot's picture description, its on-screen text and its spoken line one after the other. If they are three different ideas, pick one.

Hooks by shape

• Vertical 9:16 (TikTok, Reels, Shorts): the frame is a phone, so faces and products fill it. Keep the text in the middle; the app's own buttons cover the top and bottom edges, and the exact safe area differs by platform, so check each one's overlay before you publish.
• Square 1:1 (feeds): less height, so one subject at a time. A close-up works; a wide shot gets lost.
• Wide 16:9 (YouTube, TV): more room, and on YouTube a skip button appears at the bottom right after a few seconds. Open with the product or the problem, not a slow landscape.

One storyboard can be delivered in all three shapes, but the hook should be checked in each, because a close-up that fills a phone screen is a small thing in a wide frame.

What kills a hook

• The logo first. Nobody stops for your logo. Brand early, yes; brand first, no.
• A slow fade-in. The first half second is black or soft. In a feed, that is a thumb's worth of time.
• A long establishing shot. The street, the office, the sunrise. Lovely, and gone.
• Talking before showing. "Hi, I'm Sam from Brightdesk, and today I want to tell you about..." The viewer has left before the product's name.
• A hook that promises something the ad does not deliver. People stop, feel tricked and remember it.

Three hooks, one body: how to test

Because the hook decides so much, it is the first thing worth testing. Keep everything after the first three seconds the same and change only the opening: a problem moment, a bold question, the product in motion. Run all three at the same time to the same audience for the same money, and let the numbers pick.

At customcommercials.ai, each hook is its own commercial today: start one brief per hook and keep the rest of the brief identical. Each storyboard is written fresh, so check that the body shots match across them, and copy the ones you like before you approve. You can keep a few unapproved drafts at once. The storyboard is free, so writing the three openings costs nothing until you approve the ones you want made.

How to read the numbers

Ad platforms report two numbers that speak to the hook. A 3-second view is a play that lasted at least three seconds. Hook rate is the share of impressions that reached three seconds. A low hook rate with a good conversion rate means the ad works for the people who stay and the opening is losing everyone else, which is the best possible problem, because the fix is cheap.

What is a good hook rate? Platforms do not publish a benchmark, and any number you read online comes from one agency's accounts. Compare your own ads with each other instead. The wider picture from Runneth's 2026 benchmark of 6,015 Meta accounts is sobering and useful: advertisers spending under $10,000 a month launch about 12 new creatives a month, and only about 5 percent of creatives end up winners. Those counts include image ads, but the lesson is the same for video: you will need several openings, so make them cheap to make.

Where this leads

A hook earns the next 27 seconds. What you do with them is the rest of the script: the problem, the product, how it helps, the proof and the call to action (what you ask people to do). Our post on how to write a 30-second commercial script takes it from there, and our shorts page covers the vertical video where the hook matters most.

FAQ

What is a hook in a video ad?

The first two or three seconds of the ad, built to make someone stop scrolling: a problem moment, a surprising picture, a bold question or the product in motion. It has to work with the sound off, so the hook is usually a shot and a few words on screen, not a sentence of voice-over.

How long should a hook be?

Two to three seconds. TikTok's guidance asks for the proposition in the first 3 seconds and the hook within the first 6; Google's ABCD framework for YouTube asks ads to attract from the very start. The two-second target is industry practice, not a platform rule, and it is useful because it is strict.

Should the first shot show the product?

Often, yes: the product in motion, big and close, is one of the strongest hooks, and Google's guidance asks for the brand within the first five seconds. The exception is a problem-moment hook, which works because the product is not there yet. Either way the product should be on screen by about the eighth second.

What is a good hook rate?

Platforms do not publish one, and online benchmarks come from single agencies' accounts, so compare your own ads with each other instead. A hook rate that rises when you change only the opening tells you the new opening works; that is the only comparison that matters.

Do hooks work on TV?

Yes, with a different enemy. On TV and streaming the viewer cannot scroll but can look at a phone, so the hook has to pull attention back to the screen: a striking picture, a sharp sound, a question. The first three seconds still decide whether the next 27 are watched.

Sources

• TikTok, creative best practices for performance ads: https://ads.tiktok.com/help/article/creative-best-practices?lang=en
• Google, creative best practices for YouTube ads (ABCD): https://business.google.com/us/think/future-of-marketing/creative-best-practices-youtube-ads/
• Runneth, creative benchmarks 2026 (6,015 accounts; counts include image ads): https://runneth.com/library/research/creative-benchmarks-2026/testing-volume-by-tier
• The two-second hook, the two-to-four-word caption block and the keep-text-in-the-middle rule are industry practice, not platform rules. Safe-zone measurements for 9:16 are published only by third parties, so check your platform's own overlay.