What should the hook be in a Meta ad for a local newsletter?

You have about a quarter of a second to stop the scroll. Everything about the hook comes from that.

Where do good hooks come from?

Step back to first principles. People are not looking for you. You're throwing your information in front of them to get them to stop scrolling, capture their interest, and then click.

"What is the thing that makes somebody go, oh really? I definitely want to check this out?"

Lean into a pain your readers feel instead of "subscribe to this free newsletter." My own hook is one line: are you tired of missing events? A guest on my podcast made the same point. He said repositioning one client's offer around solving loneliness, rather than meeting people, cut their cost per lead in half. That's his number, secondhand.

What's the number one hook mistake?

Advertising what you're proud of instead of what the scroller wants. About 95% of the people I talk to outside this space struggle with it.

"You might be great, but no offense, nobody cares. If it's our journalist won an award, nobody cares."

Think about the conversion value to the person on Facebook. "We have great local reporters" is the true, direct pitch, and it's the least compelling one.

What hooks have I used or brainstormed?

• Are you tired of missing all the fun events in [city]?
• You live in this city. You should probably know what's going on around you, and we do that for free.
• Wait, that happened here? Don't be the last to know.
• Stop getting your news about this city from people somewhere else. We're on the ground.
• You don't have time to follow everything. We do it for you, for free.
• [City] founders doing $1 million: read this. (A direct-address headline for a business audience, pulled from a competitor's best ad.)

A hook is only a concept. Each one still needs the exact script, on-screen text, and background footage worked out. I use AI to generate hook concepts, then build out the ones worth testing.

How fast does the hook have to land?

• Have people in frame in the first two seconds. No empty venue shots as an opener.
• Don't animate text in word by word. Scrollers read the first two words and they're gone.
• If someone talks, they have about 3 to 5 seconds to hook and about 10 more to keep people.

The full anatomy is in the three parts of a Meta video ad.