Rewarded vs. Interstitial Ads: Where to Actually Place Them

The format matters less than most developers assume — the same rewarded ad shown at a good moment and a bad one can produce wildly different completion rates and player reactions. Placement is the actual lever.

Rewarded video: opt-in, so placement is more forgiving

Because the player chooses to start a rewarded ad, bad placement mostly just means they don't take the offer — it rarely damages goodwill the way a forced interruption does. Good spots: an optional revive after death, a bonus currency offer between levels, unlocking a cosmetic. Bad spot: making rewarded the only way to progress past a wall — that reads as pay-to-skip with extra steps and drives players away instead of converting them.

Interstitial: forced, so timing is everything

Interstitials show without the player choosing to see one, which makes timing the whole game. Natural breaks — level complete, game over, returning to a menu — read as normal pacing. Mid-action, on launch, or immediately after a player just declined a rewarded offer all read as punishment for playing, and are the fastest way to tank session length and return rate.

Frequency is a retention lever, not just a revenue one

It's tempting to increase interstitial frequency for more impressions, but every extra interruption is also a chance for the player to just close the tab instead of continuing. A player who quits after ad #2 generates zero ad impressions for the rest of a session they might otherwise have played for twenty minutes. Under-showing ads costs you impressions today; over-showing them costs you the player's next five sessions.

A reasonable starting pattern

• Interstitial on game-over or level-complete, not more often than roughly every 2-3 minutes of play.
• Rewarded offered, never forced, at points where the reward genuinely helps (extra life, bonus resource, cosmetic unlock).
• No ad of any kind in the first 30-60 seconds of a brand-new player's first session — let them decide the game is worth playing before you interrupt it.

On PlayKovo, ad timing rules and cooldowns are enforced through the SDK itself rather than left to each game to self-police — see the SDK integration docs for exactly when showRewarded() and showInterstitial() are safe to call.