Hook writing for short-form ads: ten patterns to try

A hook has one job: get the right person to give you the next few seconds. It doesn’t need to sell anything, explain the product or mention your brand. Most weak hooks go wrong in one of two directions. They open on a logo, or they open on a shock that has nothing to do with what comes next.

As a rule of thumb, we judge a hook on the first two or three seconds, and we judge it three times: what you see, what you read and what you hear. All three should point at the same idea. If the creator says one thing, the on-screen text says another and the picture shows a third, viewers get confused, and confused thumbs keep moving.

Ten patterns we keep coming back to

Every example here is made up. Swap in your own product and your own customers’ words.

1. The confession. “I spent $400 on serums before anyone told me this.” Good for categories where people have already tried and failed.
2. The wrong way first. “This is how I used to pack for a week away,” over a shot of someone sitting on a suitcase. Good when the old way is funny to watch.
3. The awkward number. “I’ve washed this bag 31 times.” An oddly specific figure reads as true, so make sure it is.
4. The doubter. “My husband said a $190 kettlebell was a scam.” Put the objection in someone else’s mouth, then answer it.
5. The roll call. “If your dog finishes dinner in four seconds flat, this one’s for you.” Names the viewer directly. Narrow beats broad here.
6. The warning. “Don’t buy a carry-on until you’ve measured this.” Suits considered purchases, where people are scared of choosing wrong.
7. The flat disagreement. “You do not need a ten-step routine.” Pick a belief your buyer is tired of, and be ready to back it up in the next ten seconds.
8. The cold open. “So the vet looks at me and says, what are you feeding him?” Start in the middle of the story and let the viewer catch up.
9. The side by side. “The $12 one and the $48 one, same test.” Clear, visual and hard to scroll past if you’re shopping the category.
10. The silent stunt. Nothing is said for the first second or two. A whole scoop of powder hits a glass of water, or a suitcase goes down the stairs. For anyone watching without sound, this may be the entire hook.

Where good hooks come from

Customers write better hooks than copywriters do. Before you brief anything, read a hundred reviews and the last month of support tickets, and copy out every phrase that sounds like a person talking. One-star reviews are especially useful, because they tell you what people were afraid of. “I was worried it would smell like my nan’s wardrobe” is a hook, and nobody at a brand would ever have written it.

Then write ten versions per angle, quickly, and cut to three. The first few will be the obvious ones. The good ones tend to turn up around number seven, once you’ve run out of things you were planning to say.

The promise has to survive

A hook makes a promise, and the next ten seconds have to keep it. “Don’t buy a carry-on until you’ve measured this” only works if you then show the measuring. Bait-and-switch hooks can look great on a three-second view report and collapse at the click, because you’ve collected the curious and lost the buyers. When a hook’s watch numbers are high and its sales are low, this is the first thing we check.

A hook that wins on views and loses on sales is an expensive way to entertain strangers.Joss Whitlock, paid social lead

One last check: read your hook out loud. If you’d be embarrassed to say it to a friend, the creator will sound embarrassed too, and the camera notices.