Plan social and video ads that fit the format people are scrolling through.
A short video ad on TikTok or Instagram Reels works best when it looks like the ordinary videos around it, opens on the most interesting thing you have, shows the product doing its job and ends with a clear offer. Most good short video ads follow that shape: hook, proof, offer.
Mei Ling runs a cake business. She paid a videographer for a thirty-second ad with soft music, slow shots of cakes on a marble counter, her logo at the start and a list of flavours at the end. It looked lovely, but on TikTok and Instagram Reels almost nobody watched it past the first two seconds. A week later she posted a phone clip of herself piping a dinosaur onto a cake while her toddler watched from the kitchen doorway. It was shaky and unedited, and people watched it to the end.
People open TikTok and Reels to watch short videos made by other people. They don't open them to watch ads, and their thumbs have learned to spot an ad instantly and scroll past it. A polished commercial with a logo, studio lighting and a voice-over looks like an ad from the first frame, and many people swipe before it has said anything. Ads that look like native short videos tend to hold attention better.
A native-looking ad is vertical and filmed on a phone. It shows a real person talking to camera or doing something real, uses natural sound or a simple voice, and has on-screen text styled the way the platform's own creators style theirs. TikTok's own guidance for advertisers says much the same thing. You can see the pattern in the top ads section of the TikTok Creative Center, which you met in Lesson 1.4, "Audit three live ads with auction eyes". Spend a few minutes scrolling through it.
Native-looking video still needs clear sound, good light and a clear point. The aim is video made for the feed by someone who watches the feed, rather than a TV ad cut down to fit.
It also helps to know how the auction picks ads. Lesson 1.3, "TikTok and other platforms work on the same idea", covered how ad auctions work. TikTok says it ranks ads by how much advertisers bid and how relevant the ads are to users. Its official pages don't say that watch time or engagement are inputs, and they don't promise a lower cost for ads people watch, so treat holding attention as a way to raise your results rather than a guaranteed saving. For how Meta's auction works, check Meta's Business Help Centre.
On a feed you have only a moment to stop the thumb. The hook is whatever appears first, in picture and in words, and it decides whether anyone sees the rest. Open on the most interesting thing you have, which is usually the problem or the result.
The problem is a situation the buyer recognises: a child crying over homework, a blouse sticking to someone's back on a crowded MRT train, or a birthday party next week with no cake ordered. The result is what the product makes possible: the finished cake carried out to a room of excited children, or a woman walking into a meeting looking sharp and comfortable.
Don't open on your logo, your shop front or a greeting, because they mean nothing to someone who doesn't know you yet. Mei Ling's clip worked partly because its first frame was a half-finished dinosaur, and viewers wanted to see it finished.
The hook skills you use for organic posts apply to ads too. The course "Social media and short-form video" teaches how to write and test them, and lesson 2.3 of "Content and copywriting that people read", "Hooks for social posts and short video", also covers hooks. With an ad you pay for each view, so a weak opening wastes money as well as attention.
After the hook, show the product doing its job: a cake being cut and served, a blouse worn on a commute, then in a meeting, then at lunch, or a tutor working through a real exam question with a student. Proof can be the product in use, a real customer or a demonstration. Showing works better than describing because viewers see the evidence for themselves.
Name who the product is for early, either in words or by showing them. Lesson 4.2, "Broad targeting and why platforms now push it", covered broad targeting. TikTok says the benefits of its automatic targeting now apply to all broad ads, and calls this the most effective way for most advertisers to get their ads to the right people. Meta's guidance on this could not be checked here, so read Meta's Business Help Centre for how its Advantage+ audience works. If Farah's blouse video opens with on-screen text saying "starting your first office job", viewers who are starting a new job can tell straight away that it is for them. A video that could be for anyone gives nobody a reason to stop.
Then make the offer clearly. Say what you want viewers to do and why they should do it now, and end with the next action. Lesson 5.3, "One offer, one proof, one action", covers the offer and the call to action in detail.
The shape of a short video ad is:
Hook: the problem or the result, in the first moments. Proof: the product in use, a real customer, or a demonstration. Offer: what you want viewers to do and why now, ending with the next action.
Mei Ling's next ad follows this shape. It opens on the half-finished dinosaur cake as the hook. The proof is the finished cake being carried into a party. It ends with the offer in on-screen text: custom kids' cakes in Punggol, order a week ahead, tap to message.
You rarely need to start from nothing, because some of your existing material often already works this way and can become the core of an ad. That could be a post that did well organically, a question customers always ask, or a moment from your working day that people find interesting. In the activity below you will take one of them and rewrite it as a short ad script with a hook, proof and an offer.
Take one of your best organic posts or ideas and rewrite it as a short ad script with a hook, a proof point and an offer.
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