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The Zeigarnik effect

Also called Open loops

Raise a question early, answer it late, and people stay to the end.

  • Keep attention
  • Stop the scroll
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The idea

People keep thinking about things they have started but not finished. In marketing, an open loop is a question or promise you raise early and pay off later, so people stay to find out.

Illustration of The Zeigarnik effect

Why it works

Bluma Zeigarnik described the effect in 1927: interrupted tasks seemed to stay on people's minds. That memory finding has been hard to repeat in later studies. The part that holds up well is the urge to go back and finish something interrupted, which Maria Ovsiankina showed in 1928, and that urge is what an open loop uses.

Research: Zeigarnik 1927, Ovsiankina 1928

Where to use it

Video hooks

Promise the payoff in the first two seconds and deliver it near the end. Everything in between has to earn the wait.

The third mistake costs the most. But first, the one everyone makes.
Carousels

Point at a later slide on the first one, then make that slide the best in the set so the swipe feels worth it.

Slide 5 is the one people screenshot.
Long-form copy

Ask the question in the headline or opening line, take a detour through the story or the proof, then come back and answer it.

Why did the cheaper ad beat the expensive one? It comes down to one line.
Email

End each email on the question the next one answers, so a series gets opened in order. A question in the subject line works the same way.

Tomorrow: the line we cut that made the whole offer clearer.
Ads

Open with the unfinished part of a story and resolve it in the body copy or on the landing page, never three clicks away.

We nearly turned this job down. Here's why we didn't.

Steal these

Fill in the brackets and use them in your next post, ad or email.

  • Most [audience] get [thing] wrong. The fix is simple, but first...
  • There are [3] reasons [result]. The last one surprised me.
  • I nearly [mistake]. What stopped me is at the end.
  • Save this. Slide [5] is the one you'll come back to.
  • Before you [action], watch this to the end.

Before and after

Before

5 tips to get more Google reviews

After

Tip 5 is the review trick almost nobody uses. Here are the first four.

The first version is complete on arrival, so there's no reason to keep reading. The second opens a loop the reader wants closed, and the list still delivers.

Where it backfires

Never leave the loop open. If the payoff never comes, or it's smaller than the tease, it reads as clickbait and people stop trusting your next hook.

Pairs well with

The peak-end ruleClose the loop right at the end, so the payoff is also the moment people remember.

Common questions

Is an open loop just clickbait?
Only when it doesn't pay off. Clickbait promises and never delivers. An open loop promises, then delivers in full, which is why people come back for the next one.
How long can a loop stay open?
In a short video, until the last few seconds. In long copy, a section or two. In an email series, one email. The longer you hold it open, the better the payoff has to be.

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