YouTube Announces Update to mid-Roll Ad Placement Process in Clips

YouTube creators take note: As of May, YouTube’s changing the way that mid-roll ad placement works, by updating its ad placement options in order to drive more logical, and responsive, ad exposure within clips.

As explained by YouTube:

“Starting May 12, 2025, we're improving the quality of mid-roll ads on YouTube. That means we'll show more mid-roll ads at natural break points, like pauses and transitions, and fewer ads where they may feel interruptive or cause viewers to abandon the video, like in the middle of a sentence or action sequence.”

To be clear, right now, you can manually place gaps for mid-roll ads within your videos, or you can let YouTube’s system dictate where they occur. YouTube’s updating its detection process to ensure better placement in the latter option, though the changes will also provide more options for manual users as well.

“We believe this change will increase the overall mid-roll revenue opportunity for creators. In an experiment conducted in July 2024, we observed that channels who had auto mid-roll ads slots enabled in addition to manual saw an average of over 5% increase in YouTube ad revenue compared to channels with manual mid-rolls only. 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.”

In regards to placement, YouTube’s also making some changes to the way that mid-roll ads are managed by creators, so that users will have more options within their clips.

Right now, users can only select from two options, “Automatic” or “Manual” mid-roll ad placement. As described, manual placement enables you to select the best break points to insert ads, while automatic will detect this for you, using YouTube’s systematic detection.

Some creators prefer manual placement, as it enables them to dictate the flow of their videos around these breaks, but now, YouTube’s also adding in a combined automatic and manual approach, which will use YouTube’s systematic detection, while also enabling creators to select where they think ads should go.

“Creators in the past had to choose between Auto or manual mid rolls, and now, we're going to give you the option to do both. What that means is that you place manual mid rolls in places that you think might work, but if our systems find a better break somewhere, that's more natural, it'll automatically place an ad there as well. That ensures that we better balance where viewers will feel less interruption, [while also ensuring] that we have more ad opportunities as well.”

Essentially, YouTube will look to overrule your manual ad placement selections if it thinks there’s a better place when you select this option.

In addition to this, YouTube’s also adding a new feature that’ll show you if any of your manually selected mid roll ads are considered interruptive, so you can change them if you prefer.

It’s an interesting change, which suggests that YouTube is now more confident in its automated detection process, and the way in which it places ads at the right spots in the playback. As such, YouTube sounds less confident that creators are able to do this as effectively, and in order to improve the viewing experience, and ad opportunities for creators, it’s nudging creators towards its automated placement process.

Which could be better, and it’s likely worth an experiment. And if YouTube can get this right, then it could also drive improved performance for your YouTube campaigns.

YouTube further notes that it’s also updating older videos (uploaded before February 24, 2025) with manual mid-rolls to “include additional, automatic ad-slots at natural break points.”

So it’s adding in more ads, across a wide swathe of its inventory, adding more monetization opportunities for the app. This only relates to creators who are already in the YouTube Partner Program, so it’s not adding ads into content that doesn’t already have ads enabled. But it will mean a lot more ads are being injected into YouTube system.

Creators can opt out of these additional placements within YouTube Studio, or manage these new placements manually, though YouTube does note that However, videos with interruptive mid-roll ad slots “may earn less revenue once we improve mid-roll quality after May 12, 2025.” 

You can read more about YouTube’s mid-roll update here.