The short answer
A text overlay hook is the line a muted viewer reads in the first second. The best benchmark for it is the static ad, which has no sound at all: on our board, image headlines of 4 to 9 words reach the top tier about 14.5% of the time, while headlines of 10 words or more reach it 6.8%. Keep the overlay short and make it say something the voice doesn't.
The sound-off problem, and what we can measure
Feed video often plays muted. Facebook made this point itself when it launched automatic captions for video ads in 2016, advising brands to design video that works without sound and reporting that captioned video ads increased view time by 12% on average in its internal tests (Social Media Today). That number is a decade old, so treat it as history. The principle is still how the feed works.
A limit up front: the Ad Radar board stores transcripts, headlines and body copy, not the text burned into video frames. So we can't count overlays directly. What we can study is the purest sound-off hook there is: the static ad. On October 9, 2026 the board held 473 winning image ads with a headline, each with $50k+ in estimated spend. Every one of them hooks without a single word spoken.
13.1%
of winning image ads reach the top tier
8.8%
of winning video ads reach the top tier
6 words
median length of a winning image headline
"Top tier" is the top 10% of the board by winner score, among ads live 21 days or more. Image ads reach it more often than video on our board, which is a reminder that a few words over a strong picture is a complete hook.
How long a sound-off hook should be
| Image headline length | Ads | Reach top tier | Median est. spend |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 to 3 words | 50 | 12.0% | $151K |
| 4 to 6 words | 225 | 14.7% | $199K |
| 7 to 9 words | 124 | 14.5% | $171K |
| 10 words or more | 74 | 6.8% | $140K |
The drop after nine words is the clearest finding. Long headlines reach the top tier less than half as often as mid-length ones. For an overlay that has to be read in the first second of a video, while the picture is also competing for attention, the case for short text is even stronger.
All-in-One Concealer for Mature Skin
- Est. spend
- $3.3M
- Days live
- 133
- Format
- Image
- Variants
- 7
Six words: product type, benefit and audience. No verb, no claim, no emoji. Seven variants of the picture around one line of text.
What else the text can carry
We checked a few more traits of the 473 headlines. None of them moves the needle much, which is useful in itself.
| Headline trait | Ads | Reach top tier |
|---|---|---|
| Contains an emoji | 69 | 13.0% |
| Contains a number | 138 | 13.0% |
| Contains an all-caps word | 60 | 13.3% |
| Names the brand | 56 | 14.3% |
| Starts with "I", "My" or "We" | 23 | 4.3% |
Emoji, caps and numbers are neutral. Use them for legibility or emphasis, not as a hook in themselves. The one trait that stands out is negative: first-person headlines ("I tried...", "My dog...") reach the top tier 4.3% of the time. In text, without a face or a voice to own the "I", a first-person line reads like a stranger's caption.
The exception proves the rule: first-person stories work as headlines when they promise a result someone else can use.
What really happens after you plug in TheraPet…
- Est. spend
- $946K
- Days live
- 296
- Format
- Image
- Variants
- 3
The body copy is a first-person story ("I ordered TheraPet on Monday night..."), but the headline is written for the reader: what happens to you after you plug it in. The ellipsis makes the text an open loop.
Overlay and voice: two jobs
On a video, the overlay doesn't stand alone. It sits on top of a spoken opener and a picture. The strongest openers on our board split the work so each layer says something different. Our first 3 seconds breakdown shows the spoken side: reactions, numbers and commands do best. The overlay's job is to carry what those lines leave out.
| Spoken opener (real) | What a muted viewer is missing | Overlay that fills the gap |
|---|---|---|
| "Oh, no way!" | What the reaction is about | The product name or the surprising feature |
| "$2,300 for that." | What costs $2,300 and why it matters | The alternative being priced, and yours |
| "Okay, 5'10, 200 pounds." | Why a height and weight matter | The question the ad answers ("Do these tees hide a dad bod?") |
| "Hi, I'm Logan." | Who Logan is | The audience or the situation |
The spoken lines are real openers from the board. The overlay column is illustration: what we'd write for each, not what the brands ran.
There is also the headline under the video, which the muted viewer sees after the first frames. The board has a surprising data point here. 38 video ads use a plain headline like "Shop now" or "Order now", and they reach the top tier 13.2% of the time, with a median of 206 days live. When the video carries the hook, the headline doesn't need to compete with it.
Static headlines that work as overlays
Because static headlines are sound-off hooks by definition, the best ones on the board are ready-made models for video overlays.
Change Millions of Lives❤️
- Est. spend
- $8.3M
- Days live
- 284
- Format
- Image
- Variants
- 2
Four words and an emoji over an image; the story ("Airport security stopped me because of what I was wearing") lives in the body copy. The headline sets the stakes, the copy tells the story.
Dr. Squatch runs "⚡ HARRY POTTER™ SOAPS 🔮" (est. $1.05M, 68 days, top tier): three words and two symbols, all caps, where the licensed name is the entire hook. Dog is Human runs "Proactive Dog Health, Backed by Science" (est. $862K, 125 days, top tier, 17 variants): a benefit and a proof claim in six words, then 17 versions of the image under it.
Rules for writing text overlay hooks
- 4 to 9 words. That is the best-performing range for sound-off text on our board. Above 9, results drop by half.
- On screen from frame one. A muted viewer decides before a fade-in finishes.
- Say what the voice doesn't. Captions transcribe. The overlay adds the audience, the number, the product or the payoff.
- Avoid first-person text without a face. "I tried this for 30 days" works spoken by a creator. As text alone, write it for the reader.
- Top or center, clear of the interface. Keep it away from the bottom of the frame where buttons and captions sit in Reels and Stories.
- One line, high contrast. Emoji and caps are fine for emphasis but don't help on their own.
- Test the overlay as a static. If your overlay line can't carry an image ad on its own, it isn't carrying the video for muted viewers either.
For more short openers to adapt, see the 60 real openers and Facebook ad headlines. On the Ad Radar board you can filter winning image ads by niche and read every headline with its estimated spend.
Figures marked as estimated spend come from Ad Radar's model of engagement on public Meta Ad Library ads. They are estimates, labeled as such, and are best used to rank ads against each other.