How does advertising work on Twitch? [Tutorial 2023]

Initially recognized as the favorite playground of gamers, Twitch is reinventing itself and broadening its horizons. With its dazzling growth and booming diversity of content, this platform has become a veritable land of opportunity for content creators. Logically, brands are following suit, taking advantage of the interactivity and engagement offered by Twitch to promote their products and services. Yet the field of Twitch advertising remains too often unexplored.

In this article, we'll guide you through this little-known territory, and give you all the keys you need to optimize your advertising and reach your business goals with your presence on Twitch.

Why advertise on Twitch?

No doubt your brand doesn't have an unlimited advertising budget, however, ignoring Twitch in your marketing strategy could be a regrettable oversight. Let us introduce you to five major advantages this streaming platform has to offer:

1. Reach a young audience: Twitch attracts 30 million users every day, nearly 50% of whom are aged 18 to 24. It's the ideal place to engage Generation Z and build their loyalty to your brand.
2. Engage an active community: Twitch is the ultimate in social interaction. The live streaming format creates a unique proximity with subscribers, enabling real-time exchange via live chat. This dynamic cocktail stimulates a remarkably high rate of advertising engagement for broadcasts integrated during streaming.
3. Leveraging community expansion: The number of Twitch users has doubled from 1.26 million in 2019 to 2.63 million in 2022. If this growth continues, the platform will become increasingly relevant for advertisers, while currently having less competition than other social networks. So now's the perfect time to get started.
4. Explore innovative advertising formats: Twitch offers a diverse range of innovative advertising formats for your brand to explore. This variety helps you achieve your various business objectives, and allows you to test a multitude of creative and marketing messages.
5. Diversify your advertising strategies: By strengthening your brand's presence on a new social platform, you diversify your advertising strategy. This provides an opportunity to expand into new markets and reach new targets.

How do Twitch ads work?

Twitch enjoys undeniable popularity, due in large part to its community-driven model.

This philosophy is reflected both in the company's approach to influencer marketing and in its advertising campaigns, which are seamlessly integrated into the user experience.

Unlike other social platforms such as TikTok or Meta, Twitch has not yet developed a specific tool for managing advertising. To advertise on Twitch, you need to go through the contact process, by filling in a form available on their website. You'll be asked to provide information about your company, your budget and your sector of activity. After submission, a response from the Twitch team will be sent to you with the best recommendations for launching your advertising campaign.

The different types of Twitch advertising

Before diving into the world of Twitch advertising, you'll need to determine which ad format will be most appropriate for your brand. Twitch offers two main ad formats. Video ads (or Twitch Prime Videos) are ads shown before or during livestreams, known as pre-roll or mid-roll, lasting from 30 seconds to 3 minutes.

At the same time, Twitch is making six other ad formats available:

1. The homepage carousel: aimed primarily at creators, this format lets you promote your channel on the Twitch homepage via a rotating carousel.
2. The home page banner: located behind the carousel, this ad is made up of three parts - two side images and a central section featuring the platform's color code.
3. Medium rectangle: this format is displayed when scrolling content on Twitch and supports animations.
4. The Stream Display ad: seamlessly integrated at the bottom of the screen during a stream, it offers a more organic and attractive appearance for users.
5. Streamable ads: when a user plays a Twitch partner mobile game, they can choose to watch a 30-second video ad that cannot be deactivated.
6. Super Leaderboard" ads: taking the form of banners at the top of the page when scrolling through Twitch content, this format doesn't support videos, but rather images, GIFs and other animations.

Best practices for Twitch ads

The world of Twitch advertising is still relatively unknown to many brands and agencies, with only a few examples to follow. Nevertheless, we're here to guide you! Discover below our most effective tips and best recommendations for designing flawless campaigns on Twitch.

Familiarize yourself with the Twitch community

A successful ad is one that takes into account the specificities of its target audience and meets their expectations. The key to success lies in your in-depth knowledge of the platform and your audience's behavior. To do this, take the time to browse the platform, view the content of different streamers, interact and draw inspiration from existing advertisers and your competitors.

Prioritize a quality advertising experience

To captivate and engage viewers, your Twitch ads need to be well-designed, consistent and in line with Twitch's Twitch terms of use. It's essential that your ads are creative, well-structured and of high quality.

Produce compelling advertising content

In addition, make sure your ad delivers the relevant information to your target audience. Each ad format is designed to target a specific audience and achieve a distinct objective. Whether it's to encourage creators, amplify your brand awareness or drive conversions to your site, it's crucial that your ads match the specific formats of the live streaming platform, whether on mobile or desktop.

Schedule your ads at optimized intervals

When working with streamers who deliver ads manually, it's essential to ensure that they leave intervals of at least 15 minutes between each ad . This not only guarantees an optimal viewing experience, but also better assimilation of your ad's message. What's more, make sure these creators inform their community of the next commercial break. This demonstrates your respect for the creator's audience and reinforces the positive impact of your advertising campaign.

Exploit current trends and establish strategic collaborations

Content on social networks, and especially on the streaming platform, is constantly changing. So it's essential to stay ahead of the trends so you don't miss out, and to capitalize on the visibility boost they can provide by making your ads even more captivating.

Once you're comfortable with Twitch, consider building relationships with other creators. Identify streamers who match your brand's image, and use their creativity as inspiration to develop ads or partnerships that are both entertaining and authentic, for the benefit of your respective target audiences.

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What does the future hold for Twitch advertising?

Twitch's growth in France and abroad is impossible to ignore. With an ever-growing audience and unwavering commitment, Twitch is a highly promising platform for advertising. In fact, Twitch recently announced the development of its Ads Management tool to help creators better plan and optimize their campaigns. 

If you already have an audience on Twitch, or if you're just starting out, it's high time you launched on this platform and capitalized on your pioneering status! Take the time to familiarize yourself with the platform, its creators and its communities, and learn from your first campaigns to optimize your Twitch advertising strategy to the full.