Tested four Reels hooks on the same account for 30 days — here are the raw numbers

One account, one niche, same editor, same posting times. Only the first three seconds changed. Ten Reels per hook, 40 Reels total, 30 days.

Hook 1 — question to camera ("Why is nobody talking about…")
Avg views 11,400 · avg watch 38% · saves 1.1%

Hook 2 — result first ("This made $4,100 last month, here's the whole thing")
Avg views 46,900 · avg watch 51% · saves 3.8%

Hook 3 — negative framing ("Stop doing this if you want…")
Avg views 29,200 · avg watch 44% · saves 2.2%

Hook 4 — no hook, straight into the tip
Avg views 4,800 · avg watch 29% · saves 0.6%

Takeaways I am fairly confident about:

• Result-first beat everything, by a lot, and it was not close enough to be noise
• Saves tracked watch time almost perfectly — if watch time is bad, nothing downstream saves you
• The no-hook control did not just underperform, it seemed to drag reach on the next post

Caveat before anyone runs with this: n=10 per variant is small, one account, one niche. Replicate it on yours before you rebuild your whole content calendar.

This is the same hierarchy I see in paid creative, which is a good sign. Result-first wins because it is the only hook that makes a promise. The other three ask for patience.

Hook 2 works because it is specific. "$4,100 last month" is checkable. "Made a lot of money" would have landed with hook 1. The number is doing the work, not the structure.

Fair, and I did not isolate that. Next run is the same result-first structure with a round number vs a specific one vs a range. Will post it.

Did you see any difference in follower quality? Result-first hooks pull in a lot of people who want the result and nothing else, which is great for views and awful for a list.

Noticeable, yes. Follows per 1k views were lower on hook 2 than hook 3 even though total follows were higher. If you are optimising for an audience rather than reach that matters.

Genuinely the most useful post I have read this month. Thank you for putting the losing variants in.