---
name: ad-hooks
description: "Build a bank of 50 or more ad and post hooks by borrowing proven openers from the best-performing ads and posts in any industry, stripping them to patterns, and rewriting them in your buyer's words. Use when writing video ad openers, the first line of a post, ad headlines, or when someone says hooks, thumb-stop, we need more ads, or the ad is not getting attention."
metadata:
  category: marketing
  credit: "Built on frameworks from Alex Hormozi (acquisition.com), written by the ApexGenius team."
---

# Build a bank of ad hooks

The hook is the first line or the first few seconds. It decides whether anyone
sees the rest, so it carries most of an ad's result while being its shortest
part. Put the effort into research before writing, not into length.

## Inputs

- The offer and the one action you want, such as starting a free trial.
- Who the buyer is and the problems they already say out loud.
- Optional: your best organic posts, search terms and search queries, reviews
  and call notes, in the buyer's own words.

## 1. Collect proven openers

- Study the best-performing organic posts and ads in any market, not only
  yours. A hook that works for finance often works for hotels once the
  industry words are gone, because attention works the same way everywhere.
- Add your own best posts: the ones people watched past the opening, shared,
  or clicked.
- Add the buyer's words from search terms, search queries, reviews and calls.
- Public ad libraries on the major ad platforms are good sources.

## 2. Strip each one to a pattern

Remove the industry words and keep the mechanism. Patterns that hold up:

- The pain as a question in the buyer's words: "Still building client reports
  by hand every month?"
- Stakes with a clock: "Client call in 20 minutes and the report isn't built?"
- The moment they dread, then the relief: "When a client asks why traffic
  dropped, answer before the call ends."
- A call-out of the audience: "If you run SEO for more than five clients..."
- The pain, then where to ask: "Client report due? Ask ChatGPT."

## 3. Write 50 or more for your offer

- Count distinct ideas, not versions of one line. Three wordings of the same
  question are one hook.
- Every hook is about the viewer's situation or outcome, not the product's
  features.
- Fit the placement: a search ad headline has 30 characters; a video hook has
  about three seconds of speech.
- More hooks give the platform more to choose from. There is no spend level at
  which you have too many.

## 4. Rank the strongest

Drop any hook that:

- promises a result nobody can guarantee, such as rankings, revenue or a
  number of leads;
- uses a number you cannot source;
- is a run of clipped fragments or a "not X, it's Y" reveal;
- only makes sense to someone who already knows the product.

Keep the 15 to 20 that name the viewer's own problem most plainly.

## Output

A table with the hook, its pattern, its source (industry or your own post),
the pain it names, and the placement it fits. Mark the top 15 to 20 for the
first test.

## Pairs with

- `four-angle-persuasion` for the middle of the ad.
- `cta-formula` for the ending.