Hold Rate
The share of viewers still watching a video past a defined threshold.
If hook rate measures the opening seconds, hold rate measures whether the middle of your video earned the ending. Drop-off cliffs are the fastest cue for what to cut.
Definition
Hold rate is the % of viewers still watching at a given point (e.g. 25%, 50%, 75%). It's the retention curve of a video ad.
Why it matters
Hook rate wins the click; hold rate wins the message. Ads with strong hold rate accumulate brand memory even when CTR is average.
Formula
Hold Rate @ N = Viewers past N seconds ÷ Video Plays × 100
Typical retention curve for a 30s DTC video.
Hold Rate in practice
Hold rate is the % of viewers still watching at a given point (e.g. 25%, 50%, 75%). It's the retention curve of a video ad. This is an economics metric, which means it is only useful next to the other numbers in its chain. On its own it can be gamed: a great number on a tiny denominator tells you nothing, and a poor number can be the correct trade for volume. Read it alongside spend, order volume, contribution margin and the time window the platform used to attribute the result. Read it next to Hook Rate, Video Completion Rate, CPV (Cost Per View).
How to calculate and use it
The calculation itself is simple — Hold Rate @ N = Viewers past N seconds ÷ Video Plays × 100 — and the judgement is entirely in the inputs and the window you choose. Treat the metric as a decision rule, not a scoreboard. Write down the threshold at which you would scale, hold, or cut before you look at the report — then let the number answer that question. Segment by campaign objective, audience temperature and creative concept, because a blended figure hides the two or three line items actually moving it.
What to measure and watch
Pull the number from one source of truth and keep the window fixed. Platform reporting, your analytics suite and your order system will disagree, usually because of attribution windows and refunds. Pick the system your P&L trusts, note the window, and compare like-for-like week over week rather than chasing daily noise. Why this matters commercially: Hook rate wins the click; hold rate wins the message. Ads with strong hold rate accumulate brand memory even when CTR is average.
Where Hold Rate sits in an agentic creative workflow
Xeli reads this metric back to the creative and the SKU that produced it, so the next production run is weighted toward what actually paid. Instead of a spreadsheet reconciling creative names to results, each rendered asset carries its concept, offer, ratio and product ID — which turns the metric into a brief for the next batch. In the context of metrics & economics, that means the concept stops being something a person re-applies by hand every campaign and becomes a rule the system enforces on every asset it produces.