Module 5 - Hooks

What is a "hook" in a YouTube ad?

A hook is a relevant creative idea that grabs someone's attention in a way that's actually connected to what you're selling. I'm a bit of an old-school ad man, so I tend to call it an idea rather than just a hook, and here's the thing: if I get your attention by showing a cat but the rest of the video has nothing to do with cats, you're not going to keep watching.

It has to be a relevant idea that keeps you watching or gets you to click through to a website. Remember that on YouTube your first 29 seconds are free, so you want your call to action in before then. If someone continues watching, they're interested; if they click through, brilliant, you've got them on your website, or at least in your remarketing loop. In the traditional sense, a hook might be a poster with an interesting headline, an eye-catching newspaper ad, or a memorable TV ad, and YouTube is its own unique little universe because of how it structures those free first seconds.

How do you structure a hook, an educate and a call to action?

We use a simple script template: hook, to capture attention in three to six seconds, then educate, where you reframe or explain a bit more about your service and work in more calls to action, then educate again, with more calls to action woven through. As an agency, we A/B test this, often running multiple ad sets at once, because it isn't a case of filming one version and hoping for the best.

For example, if you're a business coach helping young entrepreneurs, your hook might be something like "are you a young business owner who wants to grow online? If yes, you need to watch the rest of this video," followed by "I've helped hundreds of young business owners grow successfully through a five-step plan, click the link below." If you make tools built to last a lifetime, your hook might instead be aimed at an engineer fed up with throwing away tools that don't last, followed by a call to check out a tool with a lifetime guarantee. Both work well within what I'd call the classic YouTube hook structure, and we see it succeed for business coaches, engineering companies and lots of other sectors.

Why is testing your hooks important?

Because the "right" hook is rarely obvious in advance, and testing is how you find out what's actually more engaging. We often write several different hooks and colour code them against six or seven different educates and six or seven different calls to action, because one hook might not flow naturally into the copy that follows for another. You have to be willing to rewrite pieces to make each combination work.

Testing on YouTube is far cheaper than testing on TV, and you see the data much faster. Don't narrow down too early what you think is right or wrong for your audience; try different things and let the results tell you.

How can you make a hook more creative?

I'd challenge you to think beyond the standard YouTube hook structure, even though it works well. There's always an opportunity to try more classic, left-field creative ideas that grab attention in a different way while still talking about the product and getting the call to action in. We've worked with a healthcare company with a product for swollen ankles and feet, where showing someone genuinely benefiting from the product was the relevant hook.

My personal favourite advert of all time is a very old Lego commercial, using the comedian Tommy Cooper, built around a child's imaginative play with the toy. It's widely considered one of the greatest commercials ever made, and what makes it work is that it's based entirely on the truth of the product: it's a different toy every day, told in a genuinely entertaining way. Most people aren't from a creative background, but I'd encourage you to ask whether there's a more interesting or unusual way to say the same true thing, rather than sounding like every other coach or brand saying "you're an entrepreneur who wants to grow your business, ten times it." Showing the same message with a different, more unusual visual execution can be enough to stand out. If you get stuck, that's often where an agency or a brainstorming session with your own team comes in: look at what's been done before, including by competitors, and think about how you could say the same relevant thing differently. The message still has to be direct and clearly about your product; the creativity is in how you say it, not in wandering away from what it's actually about.