<b>The day I deleted the word 'I' from my first line</b>

<b>The day I deleted the word 'I' from my first line</b>

Let me tell you what happened with this script. My opening was "I tried the new Meta ad format for a week." Flat. The retention graph cliff-dived to 41% by second three.

Here's the thing — viewers don't know me, so "I" buys nothing in the first frame. I rewrote it to lead with the thing they care about: "This Meta ad format is quietly killing your CPMs."

Same video. Same edit. Retention at three seconds went from 41% to 68%, and the view count went 12k to 94k over the next month.

The lesson: in a cold open, the subject of your first sentence should be <i>their</i> problem, not <i>your</i> experience. You can earn the "I" by second six. Frame one belongs to them.