New In YouTube Ads: Manual Reviews and Placement Adjustments

Have you ever been in the middle of watching a YouTube video, only for an ad to appear mid-sentence and completely throw you off track? From a business perspective, an interruption like this can be enough to disengage your viewers completely. If your views or watch time are plummeting after posting monetized YouTube videos, your ad placement could be the reason why.

Starting on May 12, 2025, YouTube is aiming to put a stop to this by optimizing the placement of mid-roll ads.

YouTube explained:

“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.”

The current system allows creators to place mid-roll ads manually or leave them to be automatically decided by YouTube. In May, ad placement will become a hybrid of the two, which involves auto and manual placements working together. YouTube says this brings an increase of 5% in revenue, according to a 2024 study.

The change will be implemented on both newly published and older videos. If your business has always used auto ad placement, you won’t have to take any action.

As part of its overarching plan to optimize advertising, YouTube is currently testing improvements to its ad suitability review.

YouTube’s machine learning system can sometimes incorrectly label videos with a yellow monetization icon. If this happens, you’ll have to go through a lengthy manual appeal process, or delete and reupload your video.

YouTube is taking steps to improve the accuracy of yellow icon decisions by automatically sending videos placed in this ad category for human review.

YouTube further clarifies:

“This means that in some cases, we may review a newly uploaded video, even if visibility is set to private, and some monetization decisions may take up to 24 hours.”

Whether you’re posting videos about new collaborations or promoting flash sales, the timing of your business’ YouTube videos is everything. You’re likely to see most monetization while the news is hot off the press. YouTube’s monetization improvements will help you profit from the high levels of views and engagement post-upload, without running into any bumps in the road.

The ad suitability change is being tested with a small group, but YouTube plans to expand it to all creators that monetize their videos in the future.

With recent reports indicating YouTube viewers favor TV over mobile viewing, it’s clear that user behavior is changing rapidly – which makes YouTube’s advertising optimizations all the more necessary. Making use of these features will help you maintain a great viewer experience while leveraging ads. Which are you most excited to try?