A Complete Guide on How to Run Ads on Twitch

Getting your brand on Twitch with in-game advertising (and ads in general) is one of the main things to do if you want it to be present in GenZ culture. Hundreds of thousands of tech-savvy, highly educated and ambitious users visit the Amazon-owned streaming service every day. By connecting your brand with them, you are plugging into the reality of young people worldwide. So, how is it done? Read on!

1. What is Twitch
2. Types of ads on Twitch
3. General Twitch Platform advertising
4. Advertising with Twitch influencers
5. Which way to choose for your campaign?

What is Twitch

Twitch, launched in 2007 and owned by Amazon, is the biggest live streaming platform globally. Since its humble beginnings, the platform has become a haven for content creation and consumption—a place for streamers and fans alike to enjoy content, regardless of the topic. Everyone can find something interesting on the platform, from gaming, through woodworking to simple chats with audiences or walks across distant cities. 

Types of ads on Twitch

Advertising is one of the primary revenue for Twitch streamers. The platform and individual streamers provide many ways for ads to showcase branded messages across the streams. 

General Twitch Platform Advertising

1. Video Advertising

It is the closest to traditional television advertising, as you can imagine. Video ads are 30 or 60-second clips shown either before the stream loads for viewers (pre-roll ads) or in the middle of the broadcast (mid-rolls). The pre-rolls can be a maximum of 30 seconds and cannot be skipped, while mid-rolls can be 60 seconds with an option to skip the rest of the ad.

Brands can also use the option to display video optimised for mobile, which works only when the stream is being watched on an adequate device. Another possibility is showing an unskippable video commercial before the first stream a user is about to see on a given day.   

2. Homepage Headliner

The Homepage Headliner enables you to place your brand logo and message on both sides of the Twitch website. The headliner consists of right and left side graphics and a mandatory gradient colour fade.

While the headliner scales across all the resolutions, screens, and devices, unfortunately, do not accept animations, limiting you to JPG and PNG files with 450×350 pixel resolution and maximum file size of 150KB. 

3. Medium Rectangle

A Medium Rectangle is an animated or static banner visible while browsing categories of livestreams on Twitch. It can’t be expanded or hold video formats, though – the maximum resolution of 300×250 pixels with a file size up to 100KB. If you decide to use animations, they should be for up to 15 seconds in length or three loops. 

4. Super Leaderboard

The Super Leaderboard banner is visible to users on top of the page as they scroll for more content. Similar to the Medium Rectangle, these banners don’t support video formats but can be animated in GIF format with similar restrictions. Again, make sure to prepare the file with 970×66 resolution and up to 100KB in size. 

Advertising With Twitch Influencers

Creators are the backbone of every streaming platform. They provide viewers with entertaining content and attract new users to the platform. If you want to know more about the impact of your marketing campaigns, read our article on why your brand should use streamer influencers. In addition, there are a bunch of interesting and engaging ways your brand may appear on stream.

1. Individual Corporations

When it comes to working with creators, the options here are way more diverse and almost infinite. From simple on-stream shoutouts and product placements to giveaways, every brand will find something fitting their style.

Until now, this form of sponsorship was only available to brands willing to sign long-term and high-budget cooperations with streaming superstars. The time and resources needed for finding, signing and setting up the campaigns with individual creators were simply too high to apply on a flexible scale. With inStreamly, this has changed. 

2. Automated Sponsorship Deals With inStreamly

At inStreamly, we connect brands and streamers for individual, short-term sponsorship deals effectively and efficiently. Brands no longer need to do tedious research and negotiate separate contracts with individual streaming influencers. It can be done automatically with hundreds of streamers at the same time. Instead of engaging in an expensive hunt for popular streamers, you can work with smaller channels and their very engaged communities 

The streamers show animated displays as dynamic in-game content. In addition, the audience can interact with the campaign via chat messages or in other ways. Check out our case studies to learn for yourself the potential of turning marketing into engaging fun!

Which Way to Choose for Your Campaign?

Each of these advertising ways has its pros and cons and will serve different purposes in your campaign. The fundamental question is whether you should base your marketing on influencers or platform-based solutions.

The solutions offered by Twitch have the advantage of being applied globally across the site. No matter if viewers come to Twitch to watch Fortnite, hang out with their favourite streamer in ‘Just Chatting’ or search for carpentry channels, they will have a chance to encounter your ad. At the same time, this is also a disadvantage of this type of advertising. Twitch users are members of a generation raised with constant marketing noise surrounding them, which means they know ways to avoid as much of it as possible. Using ad-blocking software is a widespread method. If they are forced to turn the ad blockers off, the audience feels like your message is disturbing their experience, which isn’t the outcome most brands look for.

Working with creators is a more engaging and bond-creating way of streaming marketing. Thanks to streamers’ relationships with their communities, brands that work directly with creators enjoy more trust. They are welcome as community supporters. And as a result – this reflects on the campaign reach results.

Take a Look Into the Campaigns adidas, Sprite, or Danone Made With Streamers, and You Will Instantly Know Why Other Methods Won’t Get You This Level of Engagement.

The opportunities for placing your brand in Twitch streams are incredibly diverse. And the most important thing is to understand the GenZ viewers and their culture clearly. Then, adopting the right approach, your brand can rock the Twitch streams and become a part of daily lives for hundreds of thousands of viewers.