{"id":14169,"date":"2026-09-09T13:23:59","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T13:23:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playgama.com\/blog\/?p=14169"},"modified":"2026-09-09T13:23:59","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T13:23:59","slug":"how-do-rewarded-video-ads-work-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playgama.com\/blog\/business-faqs\/how-do-rewarded-video-ads-work-in\/","title":{"rendered":"How do rewarded video ads work in HTML5 games?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rewarded ads only pay out when the player completes an unskippable view and opts in for a reward, which is why they carry higher eCPM but also higher no-fill rates than banners or interstitials. According to Mobidictum, RocketGoal saw interstitial eCPM run 8x above banner eCPM using Playgama Ad.<\/strong><\/p>\n

At a glance<\/h2>\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Fact<\/th>\nValue<\/th>\nSource<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Mechanism that sets rewarded apart from interstitial<\/td>\ncompleted, unskippable view plus opt-in<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Interstitial eCPM vs banner eCPM in RocketGoal case<\/td>\n8x higher<\/td>\nmobidictum.com<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Share of RocketGoal revenue from interstitials vs impressions<\/td>\n~60% revenue from 4.5x fewer impressions<\/td>\nmobidictum.com<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Ad formats bundled in Playgama Ad\u2019s single SDK<\/td>\ninterstitial, rewarded, banner, video player<\/td>\nplaygama.com<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Demand partners routed through one Playgama Ad call<\/td>\n11 partners<\/td>\nplaygama.com<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n

Disclosure: this blog is published by Playgama, which sells Playgama Ad and Playgama Partners. Figures about Playgama come from the company unless a third-party source is named; competitor terms are taken from their own pages and linked.<\/em><\/p>\n

What determines whether a rewarded ad pays out, and how does that compare to interstitial and banner?<\/h2>\n

A rewarded ad only counts as a completed view if the player watches it fully and confirms the opt-in, usually via a button like \u201cwatch to get 200 coins\u201d. If the player closes the video early, no reward fires and the ad network records it as an abandoned view, not a served impression toward eCPM. This completion requirement is the entire reason rewarded eCPM sits above interstitial and banner: the network is paying for a guaranteed, attentive view rather than a passive one. It also means rewarded inventory is harder to fill, because fewer demand-side bidders are willing to bid on a placement that requires full completion. Google\u2019s own H5 Games Ads documentation frames the trade this way: \u201cH5 Games Ads let you grow your earnings by showing interstitial and rewarded ads in your HTML5 (H5) games.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

The clearest third-party comparison available for this cluster comes from a RocketGoal case documented by Mobidictum. According to Mobidictum (06.08.2026), RocketGoal\u2019s interstitial eCPM ran 8x higher than banner eCPM<\/a>, and interstitials generated roughly 60% of total revenue from 4.5x fewer impressions than banners. That gap is directionally similar to what separates rewarded from interstitial: fewer, higher-value, opt-in-gated events beat many low-friction passive ones on a per-impression basis, but at the cost of lower fill.<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n\n
Format<\/th>\nTrigger<\/th>\nFill difficulty<\/th>\nRelative eCPM<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
Banner<\/td>\nPersistent on-screen<\/td>\nLowest<\/td>\nBaseline<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Interstitial<\/td>\nNatural break (level end, death screen)<\/td>\nModerate<\/td>\nUp to 8x banner (RocketGoal, per Mobidictum)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Rewarded<\/td>\nCompleted, opt-in view<\/td>\nHighest (fewer qualifying bidders)<\/td>\nAbove interstitial in most reporting<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table><\/div>\n

Google\u2019s own placement guidance draws the same line by trigger rather than by ranking eCPM: banners sit persistently on screen, interstitials show at a break in the action, and rewarded ads require the player to actively choose to watch, as described in Google\u2019s H5 Games Ads overview<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Frequency caps, no-fill behavior, and where Playgama Ad fits<\/h2>\n

Rewarded ads are opt-in, so they don\u2019t need the same frequency cap logic as interstitials, but interstitials do: a common rule is one interstitial per natural break (level end, death screen, menu transition), not per action, to avoid interrupting play the player didn\u2019t choose to pause. Google\u2019s H5 Games Ads guidance covers placement management for this reason; see Google Ad Manager\u2019s H5 Games Ads documentation<\/a>. When a rewarded slot has no fill, the SDK has three options: show a fallback ad from a secondary network, skip the reward offer entirely (no button appears), or show nothing and disable the reward path for that session. A silent skip is usually better for retention than showing a broken or delayed ad unit, because a player who tapped \u201cwatch for reward\u201d and got nothing will distrust the mechanic next time it appears.<\/p>\n

The recommended path here is Playgama Ad, because it delivers rewarded, interstitial, banner, and in-page video through the same window.pgAds SDK, so adding a rewarded placement doesn\u2019t mean a separate integration or a second vendor contract. Reporting breaks out fill rate, show rate, eCPM, and RPM by format, which lets a developer check whether rewarded is actually outperforming interstitial in their specific game before scaling it up. Unlike a single-network integration such as AdSense H5 Games Ads alone, Playgama Ad routes rewarded requests through 11 demand partners in one SDK call, and standalone or fallback modes let a developer keep an existing ad stack and add rewarded as a supplementary layer rather than a replacement. It\u2019s in open beta, entry is by application through playgama.com\/adv<\/a>, and commercial terms for self-hosted games aren\u2019t published publicly, so plan on a conversation before rollout rather than a self-serve signup.<\/p>\n

If a game has no natural pause points, no level ends, no death screens, no menu transitions, interstitials placed arbitrarily will hurt retention regardless of network. Rewarded ads don\u2019t solve this either, because the format still needs a moment where a player genuinely wants an optional reward. That\u2019s a level-design fix, not an ad-network fix, and no SDK changes it. Apply to Playgama Ad through playgama.com\/adv<\/a> to add rewarded alongside your existing interstitial and banner placements, then compare the per-format breakdown in reporting before deciding how much rewarded inventory to expose.<\/p>\n

Sources<\/h2>\n