Damien Wilde / Android Authority
TL;DR
- YouTube is changing the way it does mid-roll ads.
- It will show fewer ads in places where they feel interruptive and more at “natural break points.”
- Creators who have mid-roll ads in interruptive places may see a decrease in revenue after May 12, 2025.
Get ready for your viewing experience on YouTube to change soon. The company is adjusting the way it does mid-roll ads so they are less interruptive to the viewer. If you’re a content creator, there’s some good news and bad news.
YouTube has announced that it plans to improve mid-roll ad quality starting on May 12, 2025. On this date, the company will start moving ads that viewers could find interruptive over to more “natural break points.” For example, an ad that appears during the middle of a sentence, during an action scene, and so on would be considered interruptive. YouTube wants to move these ads to a place in the video that makes more sense and is less likely to cause the viewer to abandon the video, like during pauses or transitions.
As the viewer, this simply means you’ll be seeing the same number of ads. However, the ad breaks will be less annoying as they won’t get in the way of the action or conversation.
The company says it also plans to update older videos released before February 24, 2025, with “additional, automatic ad-slots at natural break points” on videos with manual mid-roll ads. However, YouTubers can opt out of this update by going to YouTube Studio and heading to the Earn tab.
What this means for YouTubers
If you’re a creator, the good news is that this change could lead to more money. YouTube states that an experiment it conducted in July 2024 found that channels with a mix of manual and auto mid-roll ads saw a 5% increase in YouTube ad revenue. You’ll also have two new tools to try out.
Rolling out this week, you’ll soon have access to a tool called “Feedback in YouTube Studio.” This tool is designed to tell you if your manually placed ads are considered interruptive, allowing you to make changes as necessary. The other tool is called “Automatic ad-slots,” which identifies places that won’t be interruptive to the viewing experience if an ad is placed there. You can also turn off Automatic ad-slots if you don’t want them in addition to your manual ads.
As for the bad news, YouTube states:
If you are only using manual mid-rolls and they are placed in interruptive parts of your videos, you may see a decrease in revenue as we improve mid-roll quality after May 12, 2025.
Although YouTubers will still have the ability to choose where to manually place an ad, it’s not much of a choice. If you don’t go along with these new rules, you could risk losing out on some money.
