Same principle as the whip pan — swap the clip at the exact moment the frame is fully blurred from the zoom, and viewers read it as one continuous push-in. The only difference is the axis: zoom instead of pan.
Auto-templates in CapCut and Premiere Pro can generate this in seconds, which is a big part of why it became the default grammar of short-form content. It reads far more natural when the zoom's focal point lands on whatever the next scene wants to emphasize — a face, a product — instead of dead center.
If the zoom speed and easing don't match across the cut, the two clips feel like they're zooming at different rates. The reliable fix is counting the frames in the zoom-in and zoom-out segments and matching them by hand.
When to use
Don't push the zoom scale further than needed — overdo it and the blur reads as pixelation breaking apart, not motion.