The hook is the audition. Hook rate grades it; a cold open is how it usually starts — no logo, no greeting, the claim already on screen. The body is the delivery: proof, steps, the product in a hand, the joke's setup. Hold rate and the slope of the retention curve grade that stretch. The CTA is the ask, carried by a card, a burned-in line, or an end screen, and it only exists for people who are still there.
Each beat is a different cut. A pattern interrupt in the body will not rescue a hook that never named the payoff. A louder CTA will not rescue a body that leaked. Batching hooks against one body is how you test the opening without reshooting the proof. Changing the CTA on a body that already holds is how you test the ask without throwing away the stay.
One generate asked to play all three beats will compress them: a jump-cut artefact, a missing proof, a CTA that appears before the claim. Storyboard the three as shots, or at least as three durations the model actually sells. On looping short-form the CTA has to survive a rewatch — a last frame that joins the first, or a card that does not cover the punchline.
In practice
- Write the three beats as three lines before you prompt, and do not let the generate merge them.
- Test hooks in packs against one body; test CTAs only on a cut that already holds.
- One ask. If the last line is two jobs, it is not a CTA yet.
The mistake to avoid
Spending the whole runtime on the hook and dropping the ask on a black frame. The people who stayed were ready to act on a beat you never wrote.
Where you will run into it
- Add a Hook to Your Video — The first second decides if anyone keeps watching.
- Add a Text Overlay to a Video — Your words, placed exactly where you want them.
- AI Ad Generator — One offer, several openings, tested the same week.
- AI Reel Maker — Hook, beats, captions, posted.
Related terms
Hook rate
Hook rate meaning: the share of people shown a video who are still watching a few seconds in. It grades the opening, not the body.
Hold rate
Hold rate is the share of people still watching after the hook window — the number that grades the body, once the opening has already done its job.
CTA card
A CTA card is an on-screen prompt to act — click, shop, follow, swipe — shown during the clip, unlike an end screen that only appears at the finish.
Cold open
A cold open starts on the action — no logo, no greeting, no 'hey guys' — so the first frame is already the reason to stay.
Retention curve
Retention curve meaning: how many starters are still watching at each second. Watch time is the area under that curve.
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