If you’re still measuring success by direct conversions alone, you could be missing the bigger picture in your campaigns. Meta is shifting its focus, and if you’re not adapting, your business will be left behind.
In today’s episode, we share insights from testing with over $50 million in ad spend. You’ll hear about the importance of metrics like hook rate and hold rate, and how creative optimization is key to staying ahead. We also explain why viewing your campaigns holistically, not just through conversions, is the future of effective ad buying.
Plus, you’ll gain a clear understanding of how to navigate these changes, tweak your media buying strategy, and optimize your campaigns for better customer acquisition. Join the conversation now and learn how we’re adjusting our strategy to scale ad performance and acquire customers profitably.
In this episode:
06:12 Meta’s shift from sales to leading indicators
11:51 Why video ads are now key to ad performance
14:00 Live presentation: Analysing hook and hold rates
24:12 How hook rate and hold rate work together
26:38 Real-world examples of hook and hold rates testing
37:37 Why media buyers need to be growth strategists now
Mentioned in the Episode:
- Previous Episode with Motion’s CEO: https://perpetualtraffic.com/podcast/episode-769-the-biggest-creative-trends-in-2026-revealed-with-reza-khadjavi/
- Previous Episodes with John Moran: https://perpetualtraffic.com/?s=john+moran
Listen to this episode on your favorite podcast channel:
Follow and listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/perpetual-traffic/id1022441491
Follow and listen on Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/59lhtIWHw1XXsRmT5HBAuK
Subscribe and watch on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/@perpetual_traffic?sub_confirmation=1
We appreciate your support!
Visit our website: https://perpetualtraffic.com/
Follow us on X: https://x.com/perpetualtraf
Connect with Ralph Burns:
- LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/ralphburns
- Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/ralphhburns/
- Hire Tier11 – https://www.tiereleven.com/apply-now
Connect with Lauren Petrullo:
- Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/laurenepetrullo/
- LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurenpetrullo
- Consult Mongoose Media – https://mongoosemedia.us/
Thanks so much for joining us this week. Want to subscribe to Perpetual Traffic?
Have some feedback you’d like to share? Connect with us on iTunes and leave us a review!
READ THE TRANSCRIPT:
2 Big Reasons Why Meta Isn’t Optimizing for Sales Anymore
00:00:00:00 – 00:00:04:21
Lauren
In terms of success. Matter is not focusing on the sales. It’s these leading indicators.
00:00:04:21 – 00:00:27:14
Ralph
Like if you are below a 25% hook, right, your ad is probably being sent down to the minor leagues. Okay, 30% and higher is great. I’ll show you an example of one that’s hitting both of these metrics. And when you’re using these hook rates is scale up to get new customers. The second one is this one here, something that I don’t think too many people know about, which is.
00:00:27:16 – 00:00:46:17
Ralph
Hello and welcome to the Perpetual Traffic Podcast. This is your host, Ralph Burns, founder and CEO of tier 11. Alongside my Colombian in the sun, wearing a very cool new ring co-host. Photo woman to fill in that line.
00:00:46:17 – 00:00:52:02
Lauren
Oh, shoot for anything you’re allowed. Thunder monkeys video. Sorry. I was like, oh, let me show you my fun ring.
00:00:52:03 – 00:01:09:13
Ralph
Look at that. Now I know I was gonna throw you off on the intro. People probably listening to this show. Just like, what? What is he doing? Sorry guys. So the goal on the intro is not just to introduce you, but to throw you off so you have some sort of strange look so you can see that over our YouTube cheering fest.
00:01:09:15 – 00:01:14:08
Lauren
I look, I’ve matched the same color as my shirt and my microphone.
00:01:14:10 – 00:01:35:05
Ralph
She’s had she’s got the same color microphone as are shirt like surprise surprise it’s pink of course. Anyway as she’s holding up the mic like you need that stand, you need to get that stand. You need to go back to the United States, like pick up your stand. But anyway, here we are on today’s show. You’re in Colombia.
00:01:35:05 – 00:01:57:10
Ralph
I’m back in the United States. I mean, I’m in here in, like, three weeks, so it’s nice to be home. A jet lag from New Zealand and Australia. Holy crap. Like if you have to take a red eye and you get the flight from from Auckland to San Francisco, it’s like 12, 13, 14, 15 hours, like you lose track of time.
00:01:57:12 – 00:02:04:04
Ralph
It’s unbelievable because you’re crossing the international dateline. So it’s like, I don’t even know what day it is. I like my body is just so.
00:02:04:04 – 00:02:07:16
Lauren
So how many seasons of Bridgerton did you binge on the airplane?
00:02:07:18 – 00:02:29:05
Ralph
No, I didn’t, you know, what I did do is we took all these Lord of the ring tours because my wife is the Lord of the rings. Like, not she’s like, and all the books and everything and, you know, knows all the inside scoop. So I realized I hadn’t seen the third one in the trilogy. So even though you missed the end, I know, I know, I had never actually seen it.
00:02:29:05 – 00:02:49:04
Ralph
So and then we had seen, like all the Hobbit movies, which is like the prequel. So I have seen those. But then we went on these Lord of the rings tours, like on our last day there, and I’m like, what are they talking about? Me and did I have I seen all three movies? I was the only one who wasn’t like, you know, wanting to like, you know, hold the sword of Gandalf and all that sort of stuff.
00:02:49:04 – 00:03:05:12
Ralph
I kept saying he was, yeah, Dumbledore, which really pissed everybody off. But anyway, so I’m not like a huge, like, Lord of the rings fan, but man, I did watch the finally, I watched the third one and it’s really, really good. And you are an LGR kind of nut, aren’t you?
00:03:05:13 – 00:03:12:17
Lauren
I am, I am a nerd. I am a bookworm. I’ve dance under the party tree. I’ve been to Hobbiton, Hobbit town, Hobbiton.
00:03:12:19 – 00:03:13:17
Ralph
Yeah, I.
00:03:13:19 – 00:03:33:18
Lauren
Yeah, no, I I’ve been exactly where they filmed in New Zealand as a total nerd. Again off the white over Gandalf the Gray. But you know. Yeah. I’m glad that you’ve at least consumed all, all films now. Like, I remember listening to, like, the books on CD back when there are books on CD, like there’s a road trip.
00:03:33:18 – 00:03:50:19
Lauren
And I was like, oh, what is this? And we rented them from the library so I could listen to like, some 1920s rendition of the different books. So it was one of my first ever audiobooks. Wow. In the car. Yeah. Well, we would drive to Florida every year and that was 24 hours.
00:03:50:19 – 00:04:20:19
Ralph
So that’s that’s perfect for a, Lord of the rings audiobook. So if I’m a little bit off today, Lauren is just because it’s like the jet lag is for real. Like, I’m not on any other drugs aside from caffeine here, so but we are not going to get too far into airport obligations like Ralph. High on life, just doing this show with you and also talking about some cool stuff that we’re just going to continue to beat into your heads as perpetual traffic listeners.
00:04:20:21 – 00:04:57:13
Ralph
Sorry, because we’re finding this is just everything that we’re seeing right now is counter to how you’ve done marketing in the past, especially when it comes to the meta platforms and how Google and how Amazon and how TikTok and how they all sort of work together. But most importantly, top of funnel, we’re really seeing there is a tremendous amount of education that we need to do, not only for our own clients, but for new people that are maybe coming on board tier 11 and also training our staff, like media buyers who have been doing this stuff for, you know, ten years or so is and thankfully, they’re all moving in this direction.
00:04:57:13 – 00:05:39:16
Ralph
As we learn more and more on how to navigate this new world of the meta algorithm, which we call gem Andromeda lattice. Like, there’s a lot of different names for it, but it’s transforming how we market ourselves and transforming a lot of businesses. I was just actually on a client call just within the last hour, and we were talking about the exact sort of stuff that we’re going to talk about right now, which is if you are optimizing all of your ads and you’re just looking for sales inside the platform and you’re turning stuff off that doesn’t have sales but has impressions and has spend, you are going to be in a world of hurt.
00:05:39:18 – 00:06:04:13
Ralph
And we’ve tested this with over $50 million of our own money. We’re now doing it in the last 6 to 12 months and our own client accounts. And we’re seeing we’re learning more every single week. It seems like and, myself and John have been on many of these shows here was rebroadcast from our tour, 11 Lives that We do or ad Labs we do every single Friday 230 eastern over on the tour 11 YouTube.
00:06:04:15 – 00:06:26:19
Ralph
But every single week it seems like something new is happening. So, I know you’ve had a tremendous amount of experience with all of this, but the theme of today’s show is that meta really isn’t optimizing for your sales anymore. And when you really think about it, like, why would they not do that when in fact they are, but it’s not what it appears to be.
00:06:26:19 – 00:06:43:19
Ralph
So you and I talked before we hit record here today. What are your thoughts on that and sort of how are you managing this? Because it’s a very different way of looking at how to optimize and how to scale ads in order to achieve the results that you want for your clients and or your own business.
00:06:43:22 – 00:07:04:10
Lauren
I think the biggest shift that we’ve been pushing on this subject matter is that like, yeah, Matt is not just optimizing for your sales like it’s not an ATM. It’s not I expect sales and I want my ads to do the heavy lifting of the sales, at least from our side amongst meta, we’re like shifting a lot to say, like, what is the responsibility of the ad itself?
00:07:04:12 – 00:07:28:04
Lauren
And on meta or any platform, it’s to curate the ideal audience is to find a qualified buyer to introduce your service or product to. So the ads responsibility is to like you’re earning, you’re earning trust, you’re buying attention of qualified buyers, and then your ad is earning their trust to jump into the next step. What happens after the glitch?
00:07:28:05 – 00:07:47:06
Lauren
Recruiters go into a landing page, which is going to a calendar, which is submitting a lead to which then the sales cycle starts. Your ad can promote a sale and your ad can be responsible for sales. But I think a lot of this of where Matt is not just pushing for the sale anymore, is because your ad is not responsible wholly for the sale, your product, your reviews.
00:07:47:08 – 00:08:11:03
Lauren
Landing page experience, all of that comes together. And meta has been preaching for a while that it’s not just a sale. The landing page experience can impact whether or not your ad gets any delivery. And I think, RAF, what you and I’ve been talking about a lot is that your ads that are not optimizing for sales are just as important because it’s optimizing for your funnel, it’s marketing and advertising, and.
00:08:11:03 – 00:08:31:07
Ralph
One that requires us all to look at different metrics as opposed to just the conversion numbers. And I think to determine whether or not an ad or an ad set or a campaign is actually is working in a lot of ways. John and I talked about this multiple times. He actually shut off conversion tracking in one particular place.
00:08:31:07 – 00:08:44:20
Ralph
He still got the same result. So it’s almost like conversion tracking doesn’t really matter per say, although I wouldn’t suggest doing that. But it’s all these other metrics. It’s impressions, it’s hook rate.
00:08:44:20 – 00:08:46:05
Lauren
It’s your retention.
00:08:46:09 – 00:09:03:15
Ralph
Your retention, hold rate, all of these sort of secondary metrics that we used to look at and say, all right, those are nice to look at. But now we just talked about, like I said on client call, we’re like we’re looking at hook rate and hold rate as the two metrics to determine, okay, which creatives do we need to make sure of.
00:09:03:20 – 00:09:28:19
Ralph
Which ones do we need to do more iterations of? Not necessarily, you know, even using the same creator for that type of content? I’m usually talking about like video here. So the vast majority of the creatives that we’re finding working right now, and with very few exceptions, are video content that is typically is either usually see some kind of creator content and or free content that’s done by either affiliates or whoever it happens to be.
00:09:28:19 – 00:09:50:21
Ralph
The point is this is that video right now is absolutely moving the needle, but we’re not looking at the CPA that’s associated with it to determine which creatives we should iterate upon, which is really interesting. And it’s still, I mean, as an old school marketer here, like, I have a hard time sort of, you know, wrapping my head around it.
00:09:50:21 – 00:10:00:13
Ralph
And if that’s the case, I know that’s the case for a lot of the listeners here, and especially for, you know, clients, we’re on client calls or even prospects that we’re talking to that might want to hire us as their agency.
00:10:00:18 – 00:10:19:22
Lauren
So much of media buying, like we don’t even have media buyers anymore like their growth specialist because you have to care about the entirety of the funnel. So much is now in on the ad. It’s like so many marketing agencies need to be creative studios in order for them to compete with the creative diversification demands of Andromeda. And just to meet with the evolution of what the consumer was wanting for the ads.
00:10:19:22 – 00:10:42:02
Lauren
But when you’re looking at on a creative level, like individual ad, you can’t look at the acquisition to determine in isolation, is that the leading indicator of this being of a successful at. Then you have to like pull a bird’s eye view out, look at the campaign and understand how they’re all working in aggregate. Because there’s that concept where these ads work in tandem with each other.
00:10:42:02 – 00:11:05:05
Lauren
It might not be the reason why they take action, but it’s adding more and more knowledge so that the user who has survived a trust recession, who is going through an AI blitz right now and is just needing to know more before they invest their dollars, you have to know that looking at the cost per acquisition, cost per result, or whatever it is, is not the only thing that matters to your account.
00:11:05:05 – 00:11:22:12
Lauren
Like, I know when we talk about like NPIs and the metrics that matter, but there’s other leading indication leading indicators like hook rates, we have retention rate, ramp rates, all those numbers like if you’re using stats because I like stats for warm, they’re still working for us. And carousel statics are some of the the cheapest inventory we can have right now.
00:11:22:12 – 00:11:42:11
Lauren
Because people don’t make carousels. They’re just it’s a burden on the resources. But even so, like the see more rate, which is the button to expand any copy like all of that comes into play and that is evaluating all of those additional metrics to determine whether or not the campaign at large and the success of your sales is going to work or not.
00:11:42:11 – 00:11:47:17
Lauren
So if you’re hyper focused only on the sales, meta doesn’t care about it to that extent, and you shouldn’t either.
00:11:47:18 – 00:12:00:20
Ralph
Yeah, this is just a whole different way of of looking at things. And I’m not discounting images by any stretch. I’m just finding that the thing that is really carrying most of the weight.
00:12:00:23 – 00:12:02:06
Lauren
Performance, weight.
00:12:02:08 – 00:12:20:12
Ralph
Performance weight is video, because that is top of funnel. And you may get the conversion like the last click. Conversion is typically is some kind of more either sales or product focus type of ad, but directly to.
00:12:20:16 – 00:12:39:09
Lauren
Hire like a bottom funnel solution a where everything but the thing is, it matter as you look at it, I think like what 70% of all time on Instagram is reels their inventory, what’s available, what people are consuming is definitely video. Video are reels in the meta ecosystem. And when you think about a picture is worth a thousand words.
00:12:39:15 – 00:12:58:01
Lauren
Every second of a video is worth a thousand more. You can do much stronger storytelling when you’re able to expand upon a video, which takes more time to consume. And then you have, like you said, the retention rate that you guys are looking at, it’s important to know are people consuming the content they don’t consume, they can’t convert.
00:12:58:03 – 00:13:17:17
Lauren
It’s very like you consume. I want to convert. You give me information. I want to consume more. So videos. Yeah, absolutely. You can tell a much bigger story. And then of course when you’re either doing like listening or UGC whatever those components are, now you’re also understanding someone’s intonation. You’re understanding their reputation. They’re putting more into it than a single image can do.
00:13:17:22 – 00:13:34:00
Lauren
Yeah. And again, I’m not saying that like videos convert really, really well. And then they just tell a bigger story. It’s just the last like attribution. It’s the static, at least for what we’re seeing across is getting all the credit. So again if you’re not looking at everything in aggregate you may like, oh, I’m only going to invest in static images.
00:13:34:00 – 00:13:55:07
Lauren
But the reality is is all of the consumption, all of those other leading indicators are telling you that these video ads are being consumed. Remember, social media is social first. So if you’re able to socialize, you can have more direct comments on people reacting to more content in your videos. And then your videos. Like when you’re using Instagram and you’re sharing the stories or you’re reposting.
00:13:55:07 – 00:14:00:06
Lauren
When do you ever share an individual image? Like a stock image isn’t socialized the way a video is?
00:14:00:08 – 00:14:25:14
Ralph
All right, so what we’re really talking about here, this is just a quick Google search. And I think this is really important because usually when we get any kind of insight and or direction from meta, we’re very skeptical as to, it’s accurate or not, this is just with meta, with Google. Hey, as soon as you get on with a Google representative that you are going to be stewards of the Rock.
00:14:25:14 – 00:14:35:05
Ralph
We’re here in a few ways. We have tried like dozens of Google reps. For whatever reason. They just steer you in the wrong direction here. But what we’re really finding is that.
00:14:35:05 – 00:14:37:19
Lauren
Their tails members are not customer, so.
00:14:37:21 – 00:14:53:14
Ralph
They’re really not customer service. So this is just a quick Google search. So if you if you’re not watching this, make sure that you do head on over to pretzel traffic.com/youtube. So it’s just a quick Google search that I’m doing it. And this is how easily available the stuff is now because all of this is very valid.
00:14:53:14 – 00:15:22:09
Ralph
So, what you’re seeing on your screen here is hook rate and hold rate on meta ads and what is considered good, what is considered sort of average and what is considered low. So let’s first define and these are not things that and I’ll show you just a quick example inside one of our hat accounts here. This is not the stuff that you would normally think meta ads would be optimizing or giving more spend to, but it absolutely is correlated.
00:15:22:09 – 00:15:43:06
Ralph
And we’re seeing this with more impressions, more reach, because hook rate and hold rate, especially on video, are the two things that we really find that alongside with outbound click through rates to a certain degree. These are the two different metrics here that we’re finding that, meta is really optimizing for. So the whole title of today’s show is that meta isn’t optimizing for your sales anymore.
00:15:43:06 – 00:15:48:03
Ralph
It is. But it’s doing it in a different way.
00:15:48:05 – 00:16:03:22
Lauren
Like technically it is. Yes, because that’s how you’re going to spend more money. But Adam Mosseri, the CEO of Instagram, who talks about jump the most, it’s like saying whether it’s an ad content, organic content, their goal meta is objective. Yeah, they want you to make money, but they need people to stay on platform for them to make money.
00:16:04:00 – 00:16:18:05
Lauren
Yeah. And in order for them to stay on platform, you have to have quality content, whether that’s an ad or organic. It’s the same thing. That’s the whole purpose of the gem update. But what you’re like here, it’s like it’s so quintessential to it. You have to understand what does meta want for you to get what you want.
00:16:18:05 – 00:16:35:04
Lauren
What you want is sales. What meta wants is retention time on app. Of course, clicking off of it, everyone knows it’s like, oh, I don’t want that. But if it’s solving for a consumer or person’s like relevant need, that product or service answers or question might is fine. Like yeah, take that traffic off there so they can come right back and learn more and more and more.
00:16:35:04 – 00:16:46:14
Lauren
So like again, it’s yes, you’re optimizing for sales in terms of like where you are in the bidding auction. But in terms of success, meta is not focusing on the sales. It’s these these leading indicators.
00:16:46:14 – 00:17:11:18
Ralph
It’s these consumption counters. So when you’re when you’re running ad campaigns, you’re not looking for lagging indicators. You’re really looking for leading indicators. What is going to lead to more engagement and ultimately sales. And these are the metrics that we’re finding right now with video specifically. So let’s just define what these two factors are. First off hook rate is three second views over impressions.
00:17:11:18 – 00:17:20:01
Ralph
So measures how well the ad stops the scroll makes sense. Hook people. And we always talk about the hook. It’s the first 3 to 3 seconds.
00:17:20:03 – 00:17:35:22
Lauren
So we aim for 30% like we have it on our like weekly sheet. We have to look at the account like, are we hitting so we have like at least amongst video every week we do a full like account and we have hook rate is like one of the KPIs we have to look at to see if the new creative made a difference.
00:17:35:22 – 00:17:50:14
Lauren
And then our performance review meetings every Friday we look out on a per ad basis. Is it hitting at we say 30%. That’s our target. What you can see on your screen is 30 to 40%. All right. Which is amazing. I don’t know what number you use. We use 30%.
00:17:50:16 – 00:18:08:02
Ralph
So we use as a benchmark 25%, like if it’s below 25%, which is exactly in line with what I mean. Our friends over at motion, we obviously had the CEO of motion on, just a couple of weeks ago. We’ll leave links in the show notes. Yeah. We got yeah. So razor was great. Guest. So definitely listen to that show.
00:18:08:02 – 00:18:18:18
Ralph
Watch that show. So 25% or greater is sort of our benchmark. It’s sort of like our Mendoza Line, so to speak, which, I don’t know where that actually came from. That’s a base.
00:18:18:19 – 00:18:20:09
Lauren
Mendoza’s in Argentina.
00:18:20:11 – 00:18:41:06
Ralph
I know it is, but apparently the Mendoza Line is, I think in Major League Baseball it’s a line that if you’re below that batting average wise, you’re probably getting sent down to the minors. Anyway, the point is, is like if you are below a 25% hook rate, your ad is probably being sent down to the minor league. Okay, 30% and higher is great.
00:18:41:07 – 00:19:10:06
Ralph
I’ll show you an example of one that’s hitting both of these metrics. So pretty strong on the hook rate. Average hook rate 3030 to 40% is great. Average hook rate. You should be no, you should be no less than 25. And you’ll see this. If you actually go into meta the ad platform, you’ll see this. And we’ll show it in just a second here because meta will sort of self-select those ads that are getting a hook rate less than 20 or 25%.
00:19:10:11 – 00:19:10:17
Ralph
What?
00:19:10:18 – 00:19:19:12
Lauren
This is only for videos? Yes. Static video sales do not have it. It’s only for video. So if you’re like, oh, I have zero application, remove the statics.
00:19:19:14 – 00:19:46:00
Ralph
It’s okay. It’s all right. The statics are probably getting you a fair amount of the conversions on the back end. But the point is everything is working together. And that’s what content diversification or creative diversification is all about is different pieces of content hitting or striking? Probably that’s not the greatest word. Or engaging your prospect in different parts deal with different depending on where they are in your funnel.
00:19:46:01 – 00:20:10:16
Ralph
To show the right ad at the right time, to the right person. And usually at top of funnel we see video is a great way to engage. And when you’re using these hook rates and these hold rates as leading indicators as to what we should iterate on to ultimately continue to scale up to get new customers. And that’s the goal here, is not to just sell to the same old customers over and over again.
00:20:10:18 – 00:20:30:23
Ralph
You can do that through your email marketing. You do need to do that for your socials to a certain degree. What we’re talking about here is new customer acquisition. So what we’re finding is an average hook rate of at least 25% is sort of that line, anything less than that, probably something that meta will not give a whole lot of impressions to, and not a whole lot of frequency to.
00:20:31:04 – 00:20:43:18
Ralph
But if you’re in the 3,040% range on hook rate, you’re doing pretty well. That means your video is engaging. There’s some exceptions to this, so we’re not going to get into. But that’s one of our first indicators.
00:20:43:20 – 00:21:05:04
Lauren
And that hook rate just on the video because it’s the first three seconds. Like that’s the visual hook. So again going back to the raise episode like there’s different types of hooks. And again I’m just going around the static. It’s the see more rate where that’s you’re getting people to click that seem more. We use that as a 1.05% is the one I want at least every one inch 100 to be engaged with the first 140 characters, and click See More to read it.
00:21:05:06 – 00:21:26:00
Lauren
But it’s like in this hook hook rate, it’s making sure that you have something that’s visually appealing. So that’s where, you know, people have like lo fi or high fi type of videos. You just want to have something that stands out in someone’s feed that visually gets them to watch at least two, three seconds. So that like in that when you’re like, I’m looking at which ones and how to improve for us at least I don’t know how you do it.
00:21:26:00 – 00:21:41:21
Lauren
Like our the hook rate for us is really more on the visual hook because I, I need to stop the scroll. It’s like we got them stopping magic. Like because assuming everyone’s on their phone and using their thumb to scroll, I need it to be interesting enough that I want to see what more has to be said. And then the hold rate.
00:21:41:21 – 00:21:51:20
Lauren
What you’re going to get into next is more about the quality of the content. That’s how I use it. Like that hook rate has to be attention grabbing because you’re buying attention, ideally of qualified buyers.
00:21:51:22 – 00:22:14:20
Ralph
Absolutely. And all sort of plays into each other. So the big thing here is hook rate is three second video views. And you can just do this as a setting. We’ll show it inside ads manager. We’re going to have to blur this out a bit for privacy for one of our clients. But hook rate is one of the things that we keep on on a regular basis in order to determine is the content actually engaging a potential prospect?
00:22:14:22 – 00:22:42:15
Ralph
The second one is this one here, which is something that I don’t think too many people know about, which is hold rate. So this is 15 second views divided by three second views. So this measures how well the video retains attention. After the initial hook. You’ve hook them in. Do they stick around. And that’s really sort of that secondary I would say these are sort of one two on metrics hook rate obviously really important.
00:22:42:15 – 00:23:00:15
Ralph
But if you lose them after that three seconds, then are they going to get to the point where you know, you’re actually presenting the part of the video content that’s going to engage them to the next level, or maybe convince them that this is something that they need or produce a desire that they didn’t know, that they had.
00:23:00:17 – 00:23:24:06
Ralph
All these two things really do work in concert with each other and hold right. Once again, this measures how well the video retains attention after the initial hooks. We look at both of these things here pretty strenuously, like on each individual ad, and this usually correlates with impressions and with frequency. So a strong hold, super strong hold rate is 40% to 50%.
00:23:24:08 – 00:23:35:00
Ralph
You know, low hold rate is anywhere between 20 and 30%. We’ve got right around like 30% thereabouts is sort of our line of demarcation here. So anything that’s below.
00:23:35:00 – 00:23:35:18
Lauren
That and there was a.
00:23:35:18 – 00:23:56:08
Ralph
Line you remember Mendoza Line, so to speak. But yeah. So those two metrics right there are key. And you can kind of see like just through a Google search like, yeah, this is what meta is actually stating this specifically. And it’s just a Google search wave. We obviously were taught this and were passed along this information.
00:23:56:09 – 00:24:12:09
Ralph
We found it to be exactly the same way in the wild, which is not always the case with all these ad platforms. You always need to be a little bit suspect. You need to actually put your own money behind it and validate. And I would say that these these percentages are dead on thoughts, concerns.
00:24:12:11 – 00:24:34:05
Lauren
Yeah. I mean I think it’s it’s for sure like it’s your your hook rate is can you stop scroll. Did you did you buy their attention. And then the holder is can you retain their attention. Because if they don’t consume enough they won’t know to convert like a lot of people. Maybe if you’re saying you’re like, well, your hook rate is too low, then what you want to consider like how to improve that is you have to remember that you’re designing for second zero.
00:24:34:06 – 00:24:55:07
Lauren
As soon as someone gets its second zero, it’s showing up. Before anything even plays, you have to capture the attention and then you don’t want to have that bait and switch where I’m like, oh, hey, like, oh my pops a balloon. Whoa. That got my attention. What’s happening here? And then if you don’t have that thread through, if the storyline isn’t going, you don’t have an engaging enough ad for someone to get to the answer.
00:24:55:07 – 00:25:19:23
Lauren
So like those two pieces like you, while meta, you’re optimizing at the campaign level for the conversion event. You need to have so many conversion events in the 50 day period so that you can escalate. But with the demands of diversification, with a shift of people being just media buyers. And really a lot of agencies are now becoming creative studios, is that at the ad level of what is being consumed by the individual, not just the content?
00:25:19:23 – 00:25:38:09
Lauren
Like meta is prioritizing that a lot over just going for the sale. And that’s where, like you and I have both been like screaming like, stop turning off ads because people are turning off ads that don’t have credit to the acquisition, but they could have really strong leading indicators. A hook rate, the retention rate, like all of that, to tell you that this is, well, consume.
00:25:38:14 – 00:25:59:18
Lauren
And that’s where I’m like really bullish on your ad is not response from sale. Their ad is responsible for buying attention of qualified potential prospects and then earning their trust. Your ad has to earn their trust into why you’re going to earn their dollars, and then you’ll complete the conversion with either more ads and more content, or the content on the landing page.
00:25:59:18 – 00:26:36:10
Lauren
It’s a content consumption play. I mean, sometimes you’ll get the person where you’re like, oh my God, this is exactly what I need, because they’ve been consuming someone else’s content nonstop but never got the exact answer they’re looking for. Like, that happens, but this really shows that if you are ignoring these ad KPIs like ins and out platforms and know and understand the success of the images and the videos and whatever your ad assets are, you are ignoring one of the most important things to Meta’s opinion on whether or not you’re going to win at the auction.
00:26:36:12 – 00:26:54:17
Ralph
Yeah, exactly. Let’s go into a real world example here. Hopefully you can see my screen here. We’re just going to go into an Ads manager account. This is just this is a newer client. We’re ramping them up basically from zero sales to now significant sales a couple hundred a day. They’re basically zero before they started with us.
00:26:54:19 – 00:27:17:09
Ralph
And you won’t be able to really see the creative here, nor the ad account name, but this is really more instructive than anything else. So I actually have here on our call on like, book hold rate and you can what we always do is we will customize our columns. And this one here is one that we actually saved as a, default setting.
00:27:17:09 – 00:27:31:13
Ralph
You can simply search for either hold or for hook right here. There’s a lot of different ones. Hold rate percentage is where you want to find. And then here’s your hook rate hook rate percentage right there. And obviously we just saved that as a preset. So when it comes this is.
00:27:31:13 – 00:27:48:05
Lauren
Also great because let’s be clear they you had to manually calculate those like you had to create a custom KPI last year because you want to do it. You to do these calculations create a custom conversion. So then you could sneak it in and then that is fine. Like okay, we get it. Landing page percentage, consumption, hook rates.
00:27:48:05 – 00:27:55:00
Lauren
All this is finally showing up. So anyways, just for all those that have been doing it for more than a year, you do not have to do the calculations.
00:27:55:02 – 00:28:09:18
Ralph
Yeah, you don’t have to do the calculations, but that’s a really, really good point. That’s why I’m showing it here. I think it’s so vital, pure running a marketing department. And you have people that are doing this. They should have this as a preset and they don’t have to figure out the math anymore. It’s pretty simple math. But like these are the two biggies.
00:28:09:18 – 00:28:28:10
Ralph
Like I said, there are a couple of others. There’s click through rates, there’s frequency, there’s a few others we can talk about another shows. But the point is this. So this is one of the campaign I could click on any one of these. I just sort of picked this one. Just as a random you can actually see I’ve force rank this by amount spent in the last 30 days now actually by impressions.
00:28:28:10 – 00:28:32:18
Ralph
Sorry, the last 30 days here. This is a relatively newer campaign with.
00:28:32:23 – 00:28:38:01
Lauren
My amount spent on impressions. You almost have a 1 to 1 correlation. So yeah, it’s the same.
00:28:38:03 – 00:29:03:10
Ralph
Absolutely. And you know you’ve got the reach. Obviously you’ve got like I don’t have frequency in here. But frequency is probably like 1.51.4 thereabouts for this ad. So we’re inside a campaign. We’ve got actually 4 or 5 different campaigns for 4 or 5 different products in the e-commerce brand. And this is one ad set, broad targeting once again, like no targeting the creative creates the targeting us.
00:29:03:12 – 00:29:25:23
Ralph
And now let’s just click into this part which a lot of people always go over to edit. But click on charts and you can actually see yes, this is getting some purchases, which is yeah, you might not be able to see this here, but it’s within KPI. It’s not quite where we want it to be. The overall KPI for the entire brand is actually decreasing week over week, which is great.
00:29:26:01 – 00:29:53:15
Ralph
This ad, keep in mind, is the top of funnel that this is the ad that is engaging the user, just introducing them to the brand, talking about how great it is, giving the features and benefits to a certain degree, but also the most important part and don’t look at this is purchase new client. This is new customer. This is a copy import with edge tag is something that we do for every one of our clients to purchase and see or purchase.
00:29:53:15 – 00:30:15:23
Ralph
New client or new customer is 34 bucks, which is good, not ideal, but the overall is as this ad is being used with other ads, your image ads, like you said, sort of all the different types of creatives that we use inside creative diversification. It’s creating a blended cost per acquisition, not just by AD. And I think that’s the key here.
00:30:15:23 – 00:30:25:18
Ralph
So this one actually is just one that I randomly put, and it’s got a hook rate of 46%. So you actually go back to our.
00:30:25:20 – 00:30:46:00
Lauren
45% benchmark -30. And then this is superseding which shows again like whatever is the prompt for the beginning, the high fi, the low fi production. Is it like a face in front. Is it product forward whatever the like designing for second zero. The first three seconds has engaged people enough that they didn’t just blur past it.
00:30:46:01 – 00:31:15:14
Ralph
Right. All right. I mean, I would like to see this, on the hold rate, maybe a little bit higher, like it’s at 18%. Like I said, we’re we’re around 20, 30% hold rates, but the hook rate is so good at 46%. This is a winning at this is a reason why Facebook or Meta is giving spend to this particular ad, and you won’t be able to really see it, but it is a video ad and you can actually go down.
00:31:15:14 – 00:31:36:10
Lauren
But you can see there’s a lot like for like us non to it for I’ll be blurred out. But you can see there is a face to camera and a product that’s showing. So it’s you know that there’s two things. It’s a real person and then there’s a product. So that type of component if you were to see this like looking at this again in the charts, what you can see is like you have the information, the video play, the average play time, the hook rate, the whole break.
00:31:36:12 – 00:32:00:05
Lauren
If you do anything on YouTube, this is all the information at a content consumption on YouTube that’s applied to the ad. So you can’t neglect what is happening with the ad itself. It’s just like you can’t look at only the sales performance because nada is not looking at only the sales performance. Like, you can take this and see that like at there’s like the step happens at like second 3 or 4 where the average play is eight seconds is an entire.
00:32:00:05 – 00:32:19:08
Lauren
The video in and of itself is 33 seconds. Like what someone could do of an iteration is okay, maybe this video gets reshot with a different person and then they tighten up how long it takes for this or that. The meat of what happens in that slow decline. We did a really good episode, with Tom Brees, where he was talking about, like, the video stuff.
00:32:19:08 – 00:32:37:16
Lauren
It’s like you’re looking at the the ad itself, the creative and like opening up this chart charts like I, we I don’t think we’ve ever even shown this on the show of someone going into the charts to look at, like how the individual ad is performing. Like we’re looking at last 30 days. I definitely don’t recommend looking at anything less than seven days.
00:32:37:18 – 00:32:55:00
Lauren
But you want to understand, how was this video done so that you can make more visual hooks like this 46% rate? Phenomenal. And then you can find what this next one you’re showing is now a 21.4 or 5% hold rate, which is even better. But it has the same intro hook as my guess.
00:32:55:04 – 00:33:09:14
Ralph
So we just actually played the videos. If you’re not watching this over on professional, I don’t know if you’re really going to be able to see this, but we’ll blur it out so that you can see some of it where I was going to blur out the brand here. But the point is, is people are being hooked in by the initial three seconds.
00:33:09:14 – 00:33:32:10
Ralph
What I would love to see is them hanging around longer, and maybe the product presentation of how it actually works, maybe a little bit earlier in the video. So this is the feedback that we’re going to give to our creative team and say, okay, this is a winning ad where it’s a winning hook rate. How can we get a hold rate maybe upwards of, you know, 30, 40, 50%.
00:33:32:12 – 00:33:51:08
Ralph
And so there’s always a way in which you can optimize this. This one has a hold rate. The last seven days with 21% hook rate of 54%. So the hook rate is great hold rate I like to see it a little bit higher. The point is, is this is actually pulling in a lot of awareness and leading to a lowering of an overall Ncac.
00:33:51:10 – 00:34:05:01
Ralph
And this is how you look and analyze your ads, especially video ads. Now, because I need to show you all the images you can actually see on the left hand side here. We’ve got a ton of ads. I mean, there’s at least 25.
00:34:05:03 – 00:34:06:12
Lauren
Creative diversification.
00:34:06:12 – 00:34:07:22
Ralph
Creative diversification.
00:34:07:22 – 00:34:08:16
Lauren
And they’re all.
00:34:08:16 – 00:34:10:10
Ralph
Not one video. None of the.
00:34:10:12 – 00:34:13:05
Lauren
Meta only only of media turns them off.
00:34:13:05 – 00:34:35:13
Ralph
Absolutely at meta will turn them off. I’m quoting by just simply starving them out for impressions, and that’s how they turn them off. And then once we see those impressions basically going down to, you know, just very little like in the single digits, maybe a couple of hundreds, we might just pause that ad just because that is paused it already, just so we don’t have to think about it just for optimization.
00:34:35:13 – 00:34:54:13
Ralph
But the point is this is that, you know, the average play time here is like this. A 33 second ad average play time is about nine seconds. I think we can probably do a little bit better job. But the point is, is like the overall how this is working in aggregate with all of the other creatives in this creative beverage, the strategy, it’s working and it’s scaling this company.
00:34:54:15 – 00:35:26:14
Ralph
And those are the types of things that you really want to look at, and not just pure CPA, which is a very different shift for advertisers and for marketers just in general, because if you’re shutting off those ads and if you’re shutting off some of your most engaging content guys, that there are some exceptions. One other example of the exception to this, where we have a client which can’t really say what their industry is, but their ad is like an Asmr ad, it’s their product.
00:35:26:16 – 00:35:52:20
Ralph
It’s the people that are actually providing the service, creating like this Asmr kind of feel to it without any pitch. So it’s like we’re getting tremendous hook rates, but the hold rate and the sales conversions of the entire campaign are not where we want to be. So what we decided, we said, okay, we’re getting great on the Asmr sort of hook rate side of it.
00:35:52:22 – 00:36:05:10
Ralph
How can we introduce the product a little bit earlier and then do some audio overlay? It was it. The audio was actually just sort of the Asmr, like the rubbing, like that sort of rubbing your hands together kind of thing that people.
00:36:05:14 – 00:36:07:12
Lauren
Was like rubbing what? Ralph, careful.
00:36:07:12 – 00:36:17:11
Ralph
Now. Like now I can’t really say exactly what I said. It’s not in one of those niches. You go right to like the, you know, you you go right to the gutter.
00:36:17:13 – 00:36:24:18
Lauren
You could have been like a bowlful of jelly, like Santa Claus, like the money. God, it’s got to be a Lunar New Year. Think about the buddy. Got it. You rub his belly for some latke.
00:36:24:23 – 00:36:45:12
Ralph
So, So what I’m saying is that if you can use hook rate and hold rate in combination, plus looking at the entire ad set as to how you’re doing from a new customer acquisition standpoint, that’s how you’re going to be able to read this data here. So I think the bottom line is this is that, yes, meta is in fact optimizing your ads for sales, but.
00:36:45:14 – 00:37:08:04
Lauren
Not the campaigns. They’re listening back. They’re optimizing your campaigns for sales, but the way they’re evaluating the efficacy of your ads, the way they’re saying, how am I going to choose you? And the ad retrieval engine? How am I going to choose you? They’re not choosing you based off of sales. And at the campaign level, this is an individual race, and the ads are being chosen and the ads are being qualified.
00:37:08:04 – 00:37:30:00
Lauren
It’s like almost like if you’re evaluating dogs, right? Like it like dog shows. There’s that really funny movie. R.I.P Catherine O’Hara, what was it like Best in Show where you were like, what’s the like length of the tail between the two legs? All of those things. Matt is evaluating your ads as if they’re dogs and best in show, and so they’re trying to put the best dog forward so that you can optimize with.
00:37:30:00 – 00:37:32:17
Lauren
Okay, what does it make sense in my head? Okay, Ralph.
00:37:32:19 – 00:37:50:02
Ralph
Only you wouldn’t draw that analogy. I love it though. Anyway. However, you get this. Like you have to understand that there is a different way of of looking at all this right now. The point is, this is that you can’t look at your ads and your campaigns and your ad sets in meta the way that you did years ago.
00:37:50:02 – 00:37:50:18
Ralph
You have because you’re.
00:37:50:18 – 00:37:52:00
Lauren
Not a media buyer anymore.
00:37:52:01 – 00:38:13:23
Ralph
You’re not a media buyer anymore. You are a growth strategist. And yes, that means utilizing the data that we’ve seen here, leading indicators that ultimately lead to the lagging indicator, which is conversions. This is the kind of stuff that we’re looking for right now. And this is the sort of thing that’s really moving the needle with creative diversification, especially so, of course.
00:38:13:23 – 00:38:43:17
Ralph
So wherever you listen to podcasts, please leave a rating. A review, allows us to get this podcast out to, more folks to teach them how to do this the right way with metrics that matter and growth at scales. So on behalf of my amazing co-host, Lauren Petrillo. So until next show, see you.
