Creative

Scroll Stop

The visual or auditory element that gets a scrolling viewer to stop and watch. The specific job the hook is trying to do.

Scroll stop (or thumb stop) is the specific job the hook of a video ad is trying to accomplish: physically stopping a thumb that's mid-scroll on the feed. Everything downstream in the ad — the pitch, the social proof, the offer, the CTA — only matters if the scroll stop worked first.

Measurable indicators of a working scroll stop: 3-second video view rate above 25-30%, hold rate at the 15-second mark above 10-15%, thumbstop ratio (3-second views ÷ impressions) above benchmark.

Scroll stop is why creative strategists obsess over the first frame, not just the first seconds. That still thumbnail — which many viewers see before any motion begins — is doing 40-60% of the attention work on its own.

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