13 TikTok hook ideas that stop the scroll

You have about three seconds. TikTok’s own creative guidance says to land your proposition inside them, and to prioritize the hook inside the first six. That is the entire job of a hook: buy the rest of the video. Everything else - pacing, story, payoff - only matters if the open works.

Hooks are not magic. The same handful of formulas keep winning across the niches we track, and you can borrow them shamelessly. Below are the patterns we see most often in top-performing short-form video, with lines you can adapt today.

Each pattern below has a full breakdown of its own (what it is, when it works and when it costs you the stop) collected in our guide to the ten video ad hook patterns.

Curiosity-gap hooks

These open a loop the viewer has to stay to close. The trick is specificity. A vague tease reads as clickbait, a precise one reads as a promise. More on where the pattern holds attention and where it tips into bait: curiosity gap hooks.

• “Nobody talks about this part of [topic]”
• “I tried [thing] for 30 days - day 21 changed my mind”
• “The reason your [result] isn’t working has nothing to do with [obvious cause]”
• “Three things I wish I knew before [milestone]”
• “This costs $4 and outperforms the $90 version”

Pattern-interrupt hooks

Break the rhythm the feed has trained into the viewer and you buy a beat of attention on credit. We cover the terms of that loan (when the surprise is worth it, and when it isn’t) on pattern interrupt hooks; contrarian hooks are the version that picks an argument instead. Here are the shapes we see most.

• Start mid-task with no greeting - “…so that’s why I stopped using it”, then rewind
• “Stop doing [common advice]” - contrarian opens force a pause
• Hold a result on screen for the first second, then explain how
• Text overlay that contradicts the voiceover until the punchline lands

POV and relatability hooks

POV framing puts the viewer inside the situation instead of in front of it. It works because recognition needs no explanation. The viewer places themselves before you have finished the sentence. The named version of this move is the audience callout hook.

• “POV: it finally clicked”
• “If you’re a [identity] who [struggle], keep watching”
• “Things in my [routine/setup] that just make sense”
• “Watch me convince you to [small action] in 20 seconds”

A hook is a promise. The video is you keeping it. Break the promise and the viewer leaves before the payoff, which is the only thing the algorithm actually counts.

How to pick the right hook

Don’t write hooks from scratch. Steal the structure from videos that already performed in your niche and swap in your subject. Watch the first three seconds of the top ten videos in a format you like and write down the sentence shape, not the words.

Once your opener holds attention, structure carries the rest. See our breakdown of the 3-beat script structure, and the full hook pattern library for how to pick an opener the rest of the ad can pay for. For a live feed of hooks that are working right now, Admetra breaks down trending videos into their hook, script and cut pattern so you can start from what already works.