- YouTube plans to change the way mid-roll ads appear in videos.
- Starting May 12, the company said it will automate ad placement to improve the viewer experience.
- The update could boost creator revenue by weaving ads into “natural break points.”
YouTube says putting more ads in the middle of videos could help creators earn more money.
In a recent blog post, YouTube announced plans to automate the placement of ads that appear in the middle of videos.
Starting on May 12, the platform said it will show more mid-roll ads at “natural break points,” like pauses and transitions. It will also remove ads from “interruptive” places, like in the middle of a sentence or action sequence, that could cause viewers to close the video.
The company said the change is meant to improve viewers’ experiences and potentially earn creators more money.
YouTube tested this ad change in July. It said channels that enabled both auto and manual mid-roll ads saw an average of over 5% increase in YouTube ad revenue compared to channels with only the manual ads.
YouTube plans to update older videos with manual mid-rolls to include “additional, automatic ad slots.” Videos without ads and those that already have automatic ads enabled will not be impacted.
Creators can opt out of the update and continue placing their ads manually. However, the company said those who do may see a decrease in revenue.
YouTube creator Amanda Golka, who runs the commentary channel Swell Entertainment with 495,000 subscribers, said she wants to test the feature on her older videos before allowing it in her new content. She wants to make sure that the automation won’t overload her videos with ads. Overall, she doesn’t expect it to be a huge revenue boost for her.
“I will probably allow them to auto-place ads on old videos — but I’ll continue to manually place ads on future videos,” she said. “I limit to about five or six midroll ads on longer videos, and YouTube tends to place eight-plus on those.”
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