Twitch reworks Ad Revenue program to help streamers 

Twitch has launched the new Ads Incentive Program (AIP) to help streamers make more money on their broadcasts. It seems that the company has decided to change its approach to content creators and make sure they get paid. 

Earlier this year, the platform released Ads Manager which eased the content creators to monetize their channel. In February, the platform offered a new version of ads income to some streamers — a fixed salary for a certain amount of ads run during a certain amount of time. Furthermore, streamers received a flat rate for each 1,000 ad views. 

CPM changes to a percent-based system

However, the established CPM structure probably wasn’t a perfect fit for all content makers on the platform, so Twitch decided to change it to a percent-based model. That means the streamers will earn 55% of the revenue from each ad that was shown on their channel. According to the company’s calculations, such a change can lead up to a 150% increase in creators’ income. 

According to Mike Minton, Vice President of Monetization at Twitch, the CPM model wasn’t “the most straightforward” option for sharing promotional revenue with creators. That’s why Twitch wanted to implement, according to Minton’s words, easier and more profitable solutions for streamers. 

Affiliates aren’t forsaken 

Another major change is that not only Twitch Partners will gain access to the AIP, but also Affiliates! Their part of the program will launch in August and their revenue share is the same as in the Partners program — 55%. There are no special requirements for entering the program. All streamers have to do is just to be a verified Twitch affiliate or a partner, set up an Ads Manager with three-minute ads per hour of the stream and start earning money. 

Twitch also noted that the AIP system is not obligatory — streamers can opt-in and opt-out anytime. Moreover, the AIP ad revenue will be higher than promotions outside the plan. Twitch claims that it will pay a higher rate for streamers who entered the Ads Incentive program as opposed to to people who just enable ads on the broadcasts. 

Why is it important for streamers? 

Such a program is a great step towards a fair salary rate, especially for beginning content creators. There’s no 100% true recipe for success and popularity, so many passionate games struggle for years to get deserved recognition and get paid for hard work. Moreover, including Affiliates in the program will be profitable both for Twitch and streamers themselves, as the platform can attract and lure streamers from other platforms.

We can also assume that this change was made to create better conditions for top creators to make them stay on the platform, because a few high-profile streamers like TimTheTatman, Sykkuno and Ludwig switched from Twitch to YouTube Gaming. However, this is only an assumption because Twitch hasn’t revealed the list of streamers to whom they offered the AIP system or what were the terms of a deal for a particular streamer. 

 

What can go wrong?

Of course, there’s another side to every story. The increased amount of ads on streamers’ channels could negatively affect their viewership. Viewers may not be motivated to wait for the broadcast to start if they have to watch a three-minute pre-roll ad and might end up switching to another channel that isn’t involved in the AIP program or even logging off the platform completely. In case the broadcasts will be filled with ads on each channel, this can affect both spectator statistics and Twitch user count.

Anyways, with the program being now live, we’ll soon be able to see the consequences and feedback of Twitch’s new system. 

Image credit: Twitch.tv