How to Increase Your YouTube RPM (Real Levers, No Tricks)
Search for a "YouTube RPM increase trick" and you'll find videos promising to double your RPM with one hidden setting. There isn't one. But there are a few settings that can quietly cut your revenue, and a handful of planning choices that move RPM far more than any trick.
This post is the practical list: what to check in YouTube Studio today, which levers matter over the next few months, and which popular "tricks" don't do what they claim. If you want the basics first (what RPM is, how it differs from CPM and what a good number looks like by niche), read what a good YouTube RPM is. We won't repeat that here.
Start with the settings that cost you money
These are the fastest fixes, because they don't need a new video. They just stop leaks.
Monetization on every eligible video
YouTube's own help page on RPM says turning on monetization for all your videos can raise total revenue, and that RPM falls when unmonetized views go up. If you ever turned ads off on a video, or uploaded one before you were in the Partner Program and never went back, it's still earning nothing while people watch it.
In YouTube Studio, go to Content and look at the monetization icon next to each video. Fix any that are off and shouldn't be.
The interest-based ads box
Under Settings, Channel, Advanced settings, at the bottom, there's a box called "Disable interest-based ads." YouTube's warning next to it is blunt: "making this change may significantly reduce your channel's revenue." If you ticked it at some point, or someone who manages your channel did, untick it.
Your audience setting
Content marked as made for kids automatically has personalized ads turned off. That setting has to be accurate. If your videos really are made for kids, they must be marked that way, and that's not something to game. But if a general-audience history or explainer channel was marked made for kids by mistake, it's worth fixing.
Ad formats on older videos
YouTube no longer lets you pick pre-roll, post-roll, skippable and non-skippable ads one by one on new long-form videos. When ads are on, YouTube shows what's appropriate, and it recommends having all formats on. The catch is that older videos keep whatever ad choices they had before, unless you change their monetization settings. If you turned off certain formats on old uploads years ago, those choices may still be limiting them.
Mid-rolls, done properly
Mid-roll ads are the one ad placement you still control, and they're the biggest single setting that affects RPM on long videos.
The rules, from YouTube's help pages:
- Mid-rolls are available on monetized videos that are 8 minutes or longer.
- New uploads get automatic mid-roll slots by default. You can also add manual slots, or use both, which YouTube says could increase your ad opportunities.
- Ad slots aren't guaranteed to show an ad. Slots at natural breaks, like a pause in the audio or a transition, are more likely to serve. Slots that cut into a sentence or an action are less likely, and Studio marks slots that probably won't serve in red.
- Long-form videos at least 5 minutes long can also show back-to-back ads (two ads in one break).
That last point about natural breaks is where faceless channels have an advantage. You write the script, so you can build the breaks in. A beat ends, the music drops out, the next section starts with a new question. That's a clean place for an ad, and it's in the script before you ever open the editor.
What doesn't work is stretching a 6 minute video to 8 just to get mid-rolls. If retention drops, you get fewer views and less watch time, which costs more than the extra ad earns. We cover how to pick a length that fits the topic in how long YouTube videos should be.
Pick topics that sit close to a purchase
Your niche sets the range. Your topic choice decides where in that range a video lands.
Inside almost any niche, some topics are closer to something people buy. A history channel's video on the economics of the gold rush sits nearer to finance advertisers than one on medieval battle tactics. A science explainer on how batteries work is closer to tech and car advertisers than one on black holes. Neither topic is better as a video. One just tends to attract more advertisers competing for the same viewer.
You don't have to make every video like that. But if two topic ideas are equally good, the one nearer a purchase is usually the one that pays more. Our RPM by niche table gives a starting range for your category.
Audience country is a content decision
YouTube's RPM help page lists viewer geography as one of the things that make CPM, and so RPM, go up and down. You can't pick your viewers. But you choose them indirectly with every video.
The language you narrate in, the examples you use, the currency in your numbers, the places and brands you mention, and the search terms in your title all decide who finds a video. A personal finance video that talks about 401(k)s reaches a different audience than one that talks in general terms. Check your top countries in YouTube Studio analytics, then look at which of your videos skew toward the countries you want more of. Make more of those.
Time your best videos
YouTube says CPM changes with the time of year. The biggest swing comes in the fourth quarter: as Tubefilter has explained, marketers bid more for ad space in the run-up to the holidays, which pushes CPMs up and with them what creators earn per view.
That doesn't mean you should only upload in Q4. It means if you have a strong, evergreen video ready in September, it's a good one to publish before the busy season rather than in January. Older videos keep earning more in the high months too, which is one more reason to build a back catalog that keeps getting views.
Stay advertiser-friendly, including the title and thumbnail
YouTube's advertiser-friendly guidelines apply to every part of a video: the video itself, the thumbnail, the title, the description and the tags. That catches faceless channels in true crime, war history and dark mysteries more than anyone.
A few details from the guidelines that matter here:
- Profanity at the start or through most of a video may make it unsuitable for ads. Moderate profanity in a title or thumbnail can limit ads, and stronger profanity there can remove them.
- Placement matters. In the section on video games, for example, graphic violence in the thumbnail or the first seven seconds gets no ad earnings, while unedited gameplay violence later in the video can still earn.
- If you think a video was wrongly limited, you can request a human review.
Keep the shocking image out of the thumbnail and the strongest language out of the title. You can still tell a dark story well without a limited ads label on it.
Premium and the other revenue in your RPM
RPM isn't just ads. YouTube counts ads, YouTube Premium revenue, channel memberships, Super Chat and Super Stickers. Turning on the features you're eligible for adds revenue to every 1,000 views.
Premium is easy to ignore, but it's expanding in 2027. Premium revenue is shared based on how much members watch your content. YouTube announced in August 2026 that it's expanding Premium Lite to every Premium country from February 2027, with a creator pool of 60% of net Premium Lite subscription revenue (30% for Premium), and creators get 55% of the long-form share. YouTube also says that, based on 2026 performance, creators earned more per user from Premium than from ads.
You can't target Premium viewers. What you can do is make sure you've accepted the Watch Page Monetization Module, and make videos people watch to the end, since watch time is what the share is based on.
"Tricks" that don't work
Stuffing high-CPM words into tags. Adding "insurance" or "credit card" to the tags of a history video doesn't change who watches it, and advertisers pay for the audience. Tags also fall under the advertiser-friendly rules, so this can only hurt.
Using a VPN or changing your channel's country. RPM depends on where your viewers are, not where YouTube thinks you are.
Putting a mid-roll every minute. Slots that interrupt the video are less likely to serve ads, and viewers who leave don't see the next one.
Buying cheap views. Bought or artificial views don't help. On Shorts, YouTube explicitly excludes artificial views from revenue, and on long videos, unmonetized views just drag your RPM down.
A secret "all ad formats" switch. It's not secret. For new videos it's automatic now.
A monthly RPM check
Once a month, open the Revenue tab in YouTube Studio analytics and look at your revenue sources. Then check three things: any video with lots of views and low revenue (is it limited or off?), which topics earned the most per view, and which countries those views came from. That tells you what to make next.
VidNexus has topic and keyword research and a channel audit built in, which helps with the planning side of this. But every lever above works with any tools.