In 2022, Twitch launched new monetisation tools to help streamers earn more for their contributions to the platform. Some of these tools included the launch of Guest Star, customizable tags, the Ads Incentive Program and improvements to Creator Dashboard analytics. As a result, streamers earned over $1 billion on Twitch just last year!
Twitch Chief Product Officer Tom Verrilli has recently announced that more features will be released in 2023 to make it easier for streamers to earn without impacting their growth. Check out some of the features below:
More options to earn
Sound Bites are Twitch’s new first party sound alerts that allow viewers to pay to interact with and support their favourite streamers. Cheering will also be updated, giving streamers the ability to recognise viewers in more personalised ways.
Twitch is also testing features with a select few streamers to make sponsorship deals more effective and authentic, therefore making them more lucrative for the streamer. Starting with channel skins and clickable branded graphics, streamers can easily place these brand assets onto streams, above chat, and other places on their channel page for a less disruptive and more engaging sponsorship experience.
On top of this, Twitch will be bringing more of the tools that help viewers support streamers to the mobile experience, so that streamers can earn effectively across their community—no matter how the community is watching.
New tools that reduce the effort to promote streaming on and off Twitch
Promoting streams on other platforms is a key part of helping viewers discover a channel, but it can take hours of work to make promotional content from VODs and clips to share with streamer’s communities. So, Twitch is launching tools to help streamers edit and export clips for vertical, short form video formats – making it easier to promote a stream on other platforms.
Running ads is easier than ever
Twitch is updating the Ads Incentive Program to make the program easier and more flexible. Streamers can stay opted in once they’re in, and they’ll have more flexibility to adjust the number of ads they’re running.
Twitch is also improving the ad running experience. It can be difficult to know when an ad is about to run, making it difficult for streamers to prepare their viewers for the interruption. Twitch will make changes to Ads Manager to help streamers have more visibility and control over when the ads roll.
Some viewers find value in an ad-free experience, so Twitch Turbo is currently in the works – which offers perks like ad-free viewing and chat upgrades to emotes and badges – better and more relevant for the Twitch community.
Analytics updates
Twitch is rolling out Creator Home to all Affiliates and Partners, giving them a personalised ‘homebase’ that surfaces the most relevant tips and actionable recommendations to help with growth. Other updates include:
- Tag impression analytics that help streamers understand the number of viewers that saw their stream within a tag-filtered Browse page or in a Twitch search result for each tag.
- Data on the best days and times to stream in various games or categories to help streamers reach more viewers.
- Audience retention data so streamers can understand how they are engaging and retaining viewers.
Helping streamers recognise and connect with their community, whether they’re live or offline
Many streamers want the ability to stay in touch with their community even when they aren’t live, so Twitch is launching a messaging product that allows streamers to send video and clip messages, targeted to their followers or subscribers, while they’re offline.
Twitch is also building a Q&A tool to allow streamers to take prompts from their audience, with mod tools that will allow them to vet and approve the links before showing them on stream.
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