--- title: 'Ad Revenue Hack: Place More Mid-Roll Ads for 50% More Income' source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=r2y_nqjHOLE' video_id: 'r2y_nqjHOLE' date: 2026-07-14 duration_sec: 0 --- # Ad Revenue Hack: Place More Mid-Roll Ads for 50% More Income > Source: [Ad Revenue Hack: Place More Mid-Roll Ads for 50% More Income](https://youtube.com/watch?v=r2y_nqjHOLE) ## Summary This video reveals a mid-roll ad placement hack that can increase YouTube ad revenue by up to 50% without harming viewer retention. The strategy involves placing many mid-roll ad markers (every minute or so) rather than relying on YouTube's auto-insert tool, which often fails to show ads. The algorithm serves ads based on viewer tolerance, so heavy placement doesn't annoy ad-sensitive users but captures more revenue from tolerant ones. ### Key Points - **Ad Revenue Decline** [00:00] — Many creators are experiencing lower ad revenue even with stable views, prompting a search for solutions. - **The Hack Origin** [00:30] — Steve from 'Alive Engineered' shared in a Discord that most creators set up mid-roll ads incorrectly, and a special placement method can boost revenue significantly. - **Proof of Success** [01:00] — Marie from 'Humblebee and Me' tested the method: she had 79 fewer views but earned more ad revenue. John from 'Plugin Ali' and Rodney Coleman also reported a 50% increase. - **Mid-Roll Ad Mechanics** [01:30] — Each mid-roll placement is only a chance for an ad to show. YouTube's algorithm knows each viewer's ad tolerance and won't show ads to intolerant users, so heavy placement doesn't hurt retention. - **Auto-Insert Failure** [02:30] — Marie's video with 377k views had auto-inserted mid-roll ads, but 350k views occurred with zero mid-roll ads shown—only one at the end. Auto-insert is unreliable. - **How to Place Ads** [03:30] — Enable all ad types (pre-roll, mid-roll, post-roll, display, cards). Place mid-roll ads at least 2 minutes apart, ideally 1 second after chapter starts, or at sentence ends, slow spots, or silence. - **Placement Patterns** [04:30] — Three approaches: aggressive (many ads), medium, and light. Patterns shown on screen. Average viewer sees only 0.9–1.5 ads per video even with full placement. - **Test Before Applying** [05:30] — The advice comes from a Discord conversation; creators should test on one video first before applying to all content. ### Conclusion Placing many mid-roll ad markers can significantly boost ad revenue without hurting viewer retention, as YouTube's algorithm tailors ad exposure to each viewer's tolerance. However, creators should test the strategy on a single video before widespread adoption. ## Transcript if you're anything like me your ad revenue is down bad right now even if your views are and you're probably wondering to yourself will this ever come back but don't worry because I'm about to show you an ad Revenue hack that will get it back within potentially a week and it's increasing people's ad Revenue 50 across the board this is no joke either I'm going to show you proof it works too so what the heck is going on Ed I'm glad you asked so a few weeks ago in my Discord Steve from the channel alive engineered comes flying in and he told us this story about how everyone's been setting up their ads for all and that there's actually a special way to do it so that you make more money now I read it when I was out and about and I kind of forgot about it and then a few weeks later Marie from humblebee and me runs through the door and said Steve it actually worked I did what you said and last week I got 79 less views than the week before but I made more money from ads and then John from plug-in Ali replied to say he'd also done the same thing and it worked too his brothers Rodney Coleman who said it increased his ad Revenue 50 so how can you do the same and why has everyone been setting up their ads wrong this whole entire time well it all comes down to this thing here this is the mid-roll advert and I hate hate them with a passion you like me are potentially gone the second one displays but this is why this hack is so genius because as Steve put it the best part to this is no other metrics dip when you do it and literally nobody says anything you just make more money it's insane and that is because for every person that hates them one doesn't so let me show you how mid-roll ads actually works you understand how to set them up to make more money for yourself so when you get monetized you can put in skippable ads non-skippable cards and mid-roll ads you can let YouTube Place Those midro ads for you or you can place them yourself now the teaching has always been to follow a similar strategy to how traditional media uses ads and put Motorola ads at a cliffhanger moment in your video so people want to come back saving your attention now you can only turn mid-roll ads on a video that's over eight minutes long so people often put one mid-roll ad about halfway through their video at one of those Cliffhanger moment thing is this won't actually make much of a difference to your ad Revenue because when you put a mid-roll ad in it's not actually a guarantee that it will show to someone so what is it then well each placement is just a chance it could get shown so the algorithm knows it's user by a profile and that profile apparently includes their tolerance to ads so it knows that if a viewer like me can't handle them it's not going to play one when you've asked it to so the bad news is you adding a mid-roll ad could have resulted in zero new monies but it gets worse when Marie checked out a video she's made with over 377 000 views that she'd asked YouTube to Auto apply mid-roll ads to she was appalled to see that the video racked up 350 000 views with no mid-roll ads displayed at all in fact the auto insert had only included one at the very end so her advice to us was do not trust the auto add tool but if she'd follow this way to add mid-roll ads I'm about to show you she'd have been hundreds of dollars up for a few minutes extra work so how do you add mid-roll ads to make more money well you put in a lot of them and I mean a lot I know I was absolutely terrified when I heard this because I thought that's just going to impact retention but apparently it doesn't really matter even if you place ads every minute because the algorithm knows each user by their ad tolerance and because each placement is only a chance of that showing it won't and it's actually been established that the average viewer only sees between 0.9 and 1.5 ads in a video with full placement and this has been tested on over 100 channels and resulted in an average of a 50 rpm increase with no impact retention but this is where it gets interesting the advice given from our legendary Discord conversation on how many to place was as follows first have all ad types enabled that means pre-roll mid-roll post roll and uh the other everything also display and cards then try to place your ads about two minutes or more apart with the ads being placed one second after the beginning of a chapter now if you don't use chapters fear not make sure to place the mid-roll at the end of the sentence or in slow spots of the video or places with little action or places of Silence apparently you have a higher chance of playing ads during times like that I don't know why an invent the system and then place them in the following patterns now the Discord chat recommended something like this as an aggressive approach you can see that on screen right now but if you're feeling less aggressive you could adapt to the medium approach you can also see on screen right now or the light approach also on screen right now pause the video if you want to jot those down but before you run off and do this to every video do not do that I have to remind you that this is the internet and this whole video is based on a conversation spin around in a Discord yes many of my students tried it with only positive results but you need to test this for yourself first on one video Don't Go listening to this clown on the internet but if like me you're thinking to yourself you know what I still don't want to put mid-roll ads in because they just annoy the heck out of me how can I make money on YouTube in another way we'll watch this video here where I've got 32 different ideas for you that enable you to create passive income from your YouTube channel and I reckon pretty much any YouTuber has got something they could use in there