• by Colin Kirkland , February 25, 2025

YouTube is attempting to make mid-roll ads less disruptive and more lucrative for creators on its platform.

Starting May 12, YouTube will show viewers more mid-roll ads at natural break points, “like pauses and transitions,” and fewer ads “in the middle of a sentence or action sequence,” where they may feel interruptive or cause viewers to abandon the video they are watching.

YouTube says its upcoming “automatic ad slots” feature is designed to find breaks in addition to manual mid-rolls “that won't be interruptive to make sure viewers have a balanced ad experience.”

The Google-owned company says it has also begun to update older videos with manual mid-rolls to include additional, automatic ad slots at natural break points to improve viewer engagement.

However, brands can still opt out of this change in YouTube Studio and continue to manage their ads manually.

Per the introduction of less disruptive mid-rolls, it seems that creators should also be able to benefit from a small boost in ad revenue.

According to an internal experiment conducted over the summer, the company says YouTube channels with a combination of automatic and manual mid-roll ads saw an average of a more than 5% increase in ad revenue compared to channels with manual mid-rolls only.

By comparison, videos with interruptive ad slots may earn even less revenue after May 12, YouTube says.