Scroll-stop rate

Scroll-stop rate is the percentage of viewers who pause on a piece of content long enough to register it, rather than scrolling past — typically measured as the ratio of expanded views or 3-second video plays to total impressions.

Most platforms expose a version of this — Instagram’s "average watch time" on reels, TikTok’s "watched at least 3 seconds," LinkedIn’s "expanded view." All measure the same underlying behaviour: did the content earn the next second of attention.

Scroll-stop rate is the leading indicator of engagement rate. A post with a high scroll-stop rate has bought itself the chance to be read; one with low scroll-stop never gets that chance regardless of how good the body is.

You cannot get a like, share, or save from a viewer who scrolled past. Scroll-stop rate is the bottleneck — improving it improves every downstream metric by definition. Hooks, thumbnails, and first-frame design are the levers.