Hold Rate
Percentage of hooked viewers (3-second video views) who keep watching to the 15-second mark.
Definition
Hold Rate measures how well a video ad retains the viewers it has already hooked — the share of 3-second video views that go on to reach 15 seconds (or completion for shorter videos). Where Hook Rate (Thumbstop Rate) judges the open, Hold Rate judges the middle: it isolates whether the body of the ad earns continued attention after the scroll-stopping first frames, normalized to the audience that actually started watching rather than to total impressions.
Examples
A Meta video with 10,000 3-second views and 2,000 15-second views has a 20% Hold Rate
Hook Rate 35% but Hold Rate 9% — the open is winning attention the body immediately loses
Reels variant holding 28% of hooked viewers vs a feed cut holding 16% of the same audience
Calculation
How to Calculate
Divide the number of viewers who reached 15 seconds by the number who reached 3 seconds, then multiply by 100. Using 3-second views (not impressions) as the denominator isolates retention from hook strength: a low Hold Rate means the body of the ad is losing people the hook already won.
Formula
(15-Second Video Views / 3-Second Video Views) × 100Unit of Measurement
%
Operation Type
divide
Formula Variables
Industry Benchmarks for Hold Rate
Typical performance ranges by industry segment. Benchmarks vary by platform, audience maturity, and attribution window — treat these as starting points, not targets.
| Segment | Typical Range | Median | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Meta feed, DTC prospecting (15–30s) | 12% – 25% | ~18% | The honest mid-funnel range; the body of the ad must hold viewers the hook already won. |
| Meta Reels (any length) | 18% – 30% | ~23% | Full-screen immersion holds hooked viewers better than feed. |
| Longer video (30–60s), prospecting | 8% – 18% | ~12% | Longer runtimes shed roughly half of hooked viewers before 15s on cold traffic. |
| Retargeting (warm) | 25% – 40% | ~30% | Warm audiences are more patient through the body of the ad. |
| DTC Beauty / UGC, 15–30s | 18% – 28% | ~22% | Demonstration and UGC formats hold attention through the body better than studio shots. |
| Video under 15s (mechanically inflated) | 50% – 80% | ~65% | For sub-15s videos the 15-second threshold resolves on completion, so Hold Rate approaches completion rate and is a weak quality signal. |
Sources: Motion Creative Benchmarks 2026, Motion / Foreplay 2025, Triple Whale / Atria 2025, Foreplay 2025, Triple Whale + Common Thread Collective composite 2025, Meta Business Help Center
Comparison
Related Metrics
Click-Through Rate (CTR)
Click-Through Rate (CTR) measures the ratio of clicks to impressions for a digital advertisement, email, or other clickable content. It's a fundamental metric for evaluating creative relevance, audience targeting quality, and overall ad effectiveness in driving user engagement. CTR varies significantly by format, placement, and channel, making context crucial for performance evaluation.
Conversion Rate
Conversion rate measures the percentage of users who complete a defined conversion action relative to the total number who had the opportunity to convert. This metric evaluates the effectiveness of marketing efforts, user experience, and overall funnel efficiency in driving desired outcomes. Conversion actions can range from purchases and form submissions to content downloads and subscription signups.
Ad Frequency
Ad frequency measures the average number of times a unique user is exposed to a specific advertisement during a campaign period. This metric is crucial for managing ad fatigue, optimizing reach vs. repetition, and ensuring effective message delivery without oversaturation. Frequency management varies by campaign objective, creative format, and audience type.
Cost Per Mille (CPM)
Cost Per Mille (CPM) represents the cost an advertiser pays to deliver 1,000 ad impressions to their target audience. This metric is fundamental for media planning and buying, enabling comparison of advertising costs across different platforms, formats, and audience segments. CPM pricing reflects placement quality, audience targeting precision, and market demand.
Cost Per Click (CPC)
Cost Per Click (CPC) represents the average cost an advertiser pays for each click on their advertisement. In auction-based platforms, actual CPC is determined through a combination of bid amount, quality score, and competition. This metric is fundamental for measuring traffic acquisition efficiency and comparing costs across channels and campaigns.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
Pay-Per-Click is an advertising model and auction system where advertisers bid for ad placement and pay only when users click their ads. The actual cost per click is determined through a complex auction that considers bid amounts, quality scores, expected click-through rates, and landing page experience. This model aligns advertising costs with user engagement rather than just exposure.
Reach
Reach measures the total number of unique users who have been exposed to an advertisement at least once during a campaign period. This metric is fundamental for understanding campaign scale, audience penetration, and the efficiency of media spend in accessing target audiences. Reach can be measured at various levels including campaign, platform, and total brand reach.
Engagement Rate
Engagement rate measures the level of audience interaction with content by calculating the ratio of measurable actions to total content exposure. Actions typically include clicks, likes, comments, shares, saves, reactions, and other platform-specific interactions. This metric helps evaluate content resonance, creative effectiveness, and audience relevance while accounting for reach or impression volume.
Video Completion Rate (VCR)
Video Completion Rate measures the percentage of video ad impressions that are watched to 100% completion. This metric helps evaluate creative engagement, message delivery effectiveness, and audience targeting accuracy while accounting for video length and placement quality. VCR is particularly important for brand messaging where full creative viewing is crucial.
Cost Per View (CPV)
Cost Per View measures the average cost of a qualified video view, with platform-specific definitions of what constitutes a billable view. Common view criteria include watching 2-30 seconds, 50% of video in view for 2 continuous seconds, or user-initiated plays. This metric helps evaluate video ad spending efficiency and compare performance across platforms, formats, and campaigns.
View Through Rate (VTR)
View Through Rate measures the percentage of users who see an ad and later convert within a defined attribution window without clicking the ad. This metric helps assess brand awareness impact, consideration influence, and overall advertising effectiveness beyond direct response, particularly for upper-funnel campaigns.
Cost Per Completed View (CPCV)
Cost Per Completed View measures the average cost when a user watches a video ad to 100% completion. This metric is particularly relevant for brand campaigns and storytelling content where full message delivery is crucial for campaign effectiveness. CPCV helps evaluate the cost efficiency of achieving complete message exposure.
Thumbstop Rate
Thumbstop Rate measures the effectiveness of creative in capturing attention by tracking the percentage of users who stop scrolling to engage with the content in their feed for a meaningful duration, typically 2-6 seconds depending on the platform.
ThruPlay Rate
ThruPlay Rate measures the percentage of video ad impressions where users watch either the entire video (for videos under 15 seconds) or at least 15 seconds (for longer videos). This metric helps evaluate content's ability to maintain viewer attention and deliver complete messages, particularly important for platforms like Meta and TikTok.
First-Time Impression Ratio
First-Time Impression Ratio measures the proportion of ad impressions that represent the first time a unique user has been exposed to an ad. This metric helps evaluate audience reach efficiency and frequency management by distinguishing between new audience exposure and repeat impressions.
Impressions
Impressions measure the total number of times an advertisement is shown to users, regardless of whether they interact with it. Each time an ad appears on a screen counts as one impression, though viewability standards may require minimum exposure duration or percentage in view to count as a valid impression.
Share of Voice (SOV)
Share of Voice quantifies a brand's presence and visibility in the market compared to competitors or total market activity. It measures relative market presence across paid advertising impressions, organic social media engagement, PR mentions, and other trackable communications channels. SOV helps evaluate competitive position and communication effectiveness.
How AdSights helps you track Hold Rate
AdSights plots the full retention curve of every variant and reads Hook Rate and Hold Rate together, so teams can tell a hook problem (low 3-second capture) apart from a hold problem (strong hook, collapse in the body). It pinpoints which scene, voiceover beat, or pacing change between seconds 3 and 15 correlates with the drop, and — because it ties retention to downstream click and revenue outcomes — it flags when a higher Hold Rate is real attention versus merely cheaper, lower-intent views. Teams use this to rebuild the middle of an ad without touching a hook that's already working, and to length-match new briefs to the retention shape that converts.
Want AI to track Hold Rate across your creative automatically?
Request early accessSupplemental Resources
- 📚Video Drop-off Rate Calculator
Map the retention curve between the 3-second hook and the 15-second hold checkpoint to see exactly which scene is shedding hooked viewers.
AdSights Tool
Frequently asked questions
Common questions about Hold Rate, answered.
