Ask one question before rebuilding a Reel: are people leaving in the first few seconds, or are they watching but not finding a reason to visit your profile?
For example, a bookkeeping account posts a Reel that opens with: “A quick tip for business owners.” The retention graph drops sharply at the start, and profile visits remain low. Keep the video, examples, and ending exactly as they are, but change the first on-screen line to: “Stop guessing which expenses you can claim.” That gives a specific viewer an immediate payoff and a reason to keep watching.
If early exits improve after that single change but profile visits do not, the opening is clearer but the Reel may not yet connect the tip to your wider account promise. If exits stay high, make the first line more concrete: name the problem, outcome, or mistake instead of the topic.
The useful part is the controlled revision. Don’t change the hook, visuals, caption, and CTA all at once; you will not know what fixed the viewer’s decision to stay.
Which signal do you trust first when a Reel underperforms: the early retention drop or the lack of profile visits?