Hook rate

Hook rate is a short-form video metric that measures the share of viewers who keep watching past the opening seconds of a video. It is calculated by dividing the number of viewers still watching at a set early point, often three seconds in, by the number of people who started the video. A high hook rate means the first moments hold attention.

Why it matters

On vertical video platforms, most viewers decide within seconds whether to keep watching or swipe away. If you judge a video only by its total views or average watch time, you cannot tell whether it lost its audience at second two or at minute two. Those are different problems with different fixes: a weak opening needs a new first line and a stronger visual, while mid-video drop-off points to pacing or structure.

Without this metric, creators make the wrong call repeatedly. They rewrite entire scripts when only the opening fails, or they polish openings on videos whose real problem is that nothing after the hook pays it off. Hook rate isolates the decision point so you can test one variable at a time: change the first sentence, render again, compare.

An example

A channel publishes two Shorts on the same topic. The first opens with a slow establishing shot and takes eight seconds to state what the video is about. The second states a specific fact in its first sentence over archival footage of the event being described. Even if both videos end up with similar total watch time, the second one will typically show more viewers surviving the first three seconds, because fewer people swipe before the subject is clear. Comparing the two openings in your analytics shows exactly where the audience was lost.

Terms people confuse this with

• Watch time: total time viewers spend on a video. Hook rate looks only at the opening seconds; watch time covers the whole duration.
• Audience retention: the percentage of viewers remaining across the full length of a video. Hook rate is effectively the very start of that curve, isolated.
• Click-through rate: the share of people who click after seeing a thumbnail or title. Click-through happens before playback starts; hook rate measures what happens after it starts.

Where this shows up in ViewMade

ViewMade writes each Short's script so the first sentence states a measured fact rather than an introduction, because the opening line is what determines whether viewers stay past the first seconds.