Academy • Shopify Dropshipping
Ad Hooks & Creatives From Rising Terms (Shopify Dropshipping)
Why creatives should start from search intent
Most dropshippers start with a random TikTok trend and try to force a product into it. A better way: let search intent tell you what problems people already care about, then build ads directly on top of that.
Rising search terms show what people type when they are actively looking for something. Your job is to turn that into:
- a clear hook in the first 1–3 seconds,
- a simple promise,
- a visual that proves the promise.
Step 1 — Break the term into “hook pieces”
Take a rising term and split it into 3 parts:
- Who it’s for (recipient / audience),
- What the item is (core product idea),
- Why they want it (problem / desire / emotion).
Example: “car seat gap filler organizer”
- Who → drivers, people who hate messy cars
- What → organizer that fills the gap
- Why → stops stuff falling, keeps car clean
These 3 pieces will become your first line of text, voiceover, or on-screen caption.
Step 2 — Turn the term into 3–5 raw hooks
Use the search term itself as seed and write hooks like:
- “Tired of stuff falling between your car seats?”
- “This simple organizer fixes the most annoying car problem.”
- “If your car looks like this, you need this.”
Keep hooks:
- conversational (like a friend, not a brand),
- problem-first (start with pain, not product name),
- short (you have 1–3 seconds max).
Step 3 — Use modifiers to create angles
Recipient-driven angle
If the term has a recipient (mom, dad, grandma, teacher):
- “Gift your grandma something she’ll actually use every day.”
- “Teachers secretly love this kind of gift.”
Use-case-driven angle
If the term includes a context (car, office, kitchen):
- “Every kitchen needs this 5-second fix.”
- “Your office desk will never look the same.”
Step 4 — Map term → creative structure
For each promising term, you can outline a basic UGC creative like this:
- 0–3s: Hook based on pain or desire from the term.
- 3–8s: Show the product solving that exact situation.
- 8–15s: Quick proof (before/after, reactions, small demo).
- End: Simple CTA (“Shop now”, “Get yours today”).
Write this as a one-line script next to each rising term you care about.
Step 5 — Build a “hook bank” from your top terms
Create a simple doc or sheet with columns like:
- Rising term
- Problem (1 short sentence)
- Primary hook
- Alternative hooks (2–3)
- Visual idea (what we show in first 3 seconds)
This becomes your personal hook bank. Whenever you find a new rising term, you immediately add 2–3 hook ideas instead of just bookmarking the product.
Step 6 — Test hooks, not just products
For Shopify dropshipping, winning or losing often comes down to the angle, not the exact SKU. Use your rising terms to test:
- different recipients (for mom vs for grandma),
- different pain points (messy vs time-saving vs aesthetic),
- different proof styles (before/after vs reaction vs POV).
When a rising term works with one hook but not another, you learn which psychological angle actually moves that niche.
Step 7 — Tie your creatives back into search demand
Once you see a hook + creative working, loop back to your trend data:
- Is the core search term still improving or stable?
- Are related terms also rising (cluster effect)?
- Can you create more creatives for those related terms with the same angle?
This is where creative testing stops being random and starts flowing directly from marketplace demand.