Understanding Key Twitch Influencer Metrics
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If you haven’t already heard, Twitch influencers are becoming more and more popular with brands in the gaming and tech space.
However, Twitch as an influencer marketing platform is quite new. Brands aren’t too experienced when it comes to working with streamers, and streamers aren’t very prepared for working with brands either.
If there is one thing to keep in mind when marketing on Twitch, it’s that it's very different than Instagram or Twitter. There are key differences (and also a ton of similarities) between the two.
But don’t worry! While Twitch can be a little confusing, it’s easy to learn and we’re here to help.
Let’s take a look at a ton of different Twitch metrics so you can get a better understanding. We’ll start with the most misunderstood:
Followers
If you’re involved in the influencer marketing space, you’re very familiar with using follower count as a key metric when choosing influencers to work with.
On social media sites like Instagram and Twitter, an influencer’s follower count plays a huge part in your decision making process.
However, follower count doesn’t mean as much on Twitch, but I’ll get to that in a second.
There are actually a few ways that a streamer’s follower count is related to other social media sites. For instance, the reach of a streamer (or how many people are seeing the streamer’s channel in their ‘followings’ page) is very similar to that on Instagram or Twitter.
However, just because someone is following a streamer on Twitch, doesn’t mean that they’re actively watching their streams.
Sure, the streamer may appear in their ‘following’ list. But they aren’t seeing any content from the streamer unless they’ve tuned into the live video the streamer is conducting. Keep in mind: the streamer’s video doesn’t show natively on a scrolling feed like on Instagram or Twitter.
That’s why a ton of brands get tripped up when a streamer has a decent number of followers but the brand isn’t seeing much results for their campaign.
So instead of looking at follower count to determine the quality of a stream, look at some other metrics:
Average Concurrent Viewership
Average concurrent viewership is probably the most important metric that brands need to pay attention to when deciding on a streamer to sponsor.
Average concurrent viewership is, in short, the average number of viewers that are in a streamer’s live broadcast at any given time.
Like I said before, just because someone is following a streamer doesn’t mean that they’ll be watching their live broadcast. We’ve seen some streamers with 15,000 followers pull 5–10 CCV (Concurrent Viewership), while streamers with 2000 followers have a CCV of 50–100.
The reason that CCV is so important is because it combines two fundamental metrics: Reach and Impressions.
With Average Concurrent Viewership, you know exactly how many people a streamer is actively reaching on a day to day basis. You don’t have this kind of power when using other platforms.
Plus, ‘impressions’ on Twitch is a lot different than on other social media sites, simply because when a viewer is watching a streamer, a lot more of their attention is directed towards the video, whereas on other sites a simple glace counts as an impression.
However, Average CCV doesn’t count for viewers that are leaving and new viewers that are coming in. Technically, if one viewer gets replaced by another, it should be counted as another impression, yet the CCV would stay the same.
This is where Monthly Impressions comes in.
Monthly Impressions
Monthly impressions is singlehandedly your most important metric when scouting for Twitch streamers, if you’re looking for long-term or monthly deals.
For instance, are you interested in placing your logo on a streamer’s overlay or having an ongoing sponsorship for months at a time? Monthly impressions will be your number one metric to look at.
Like I said before, CCV doesn’t count for all the unique visitors that come to a stream on a daily or monthly basis, therefore we need a metric to cover this aspect.
What can you use monthly impressions for?
Well, impressions are handy for a number of things, mostly depending on what your goals are when sponsoring streamers.
For instance, are you looking to harbor your product’s idea within the same group of people to get feedback and start a user base? You may want to look for streamers who have a high CCV and Monthly impressions that are near the CCV times 30.
Side: If you multiply a streamers Average CCV by 30, this will tell you how close the number is to their monthly impressions. For instance, if CCVx30 equals their monthly impressions exactly, that means the same thousand people came back every day, and not one new viewer above or below.
Or, are you looking to reach as many people as possible, not worrying about whether the same people see your message? You may want to look towards streamers who have a much higher number of monthly impressions, but around the same CCV as their peer streamers. This tells you that a lower number of the same people are coming back on a day to day basis, and the streamer’s churn rate is high. However, more eyes are being placed on their stream.
Follower Growth
On Twitch, a streamer’s follower count either rapidly increases due to a boost in popularity or it grows slowly over time, effectively fostering a dedicated fanbase.
You can use the follower growth metric in a lot of the same ways you use the monthly impressions metric.
Here are some examples:
Let’s say that a streamer’s follower growth is slow over time, but has been steadily increasing. They have a high CCV, and a monthly impression score that is somewhere near their CCV times 30.
What does this tell you?
Well, we know for sure that this streamer has an extremely dedicated fan base. Maintaining a high CCV while struggling with follower growth means that the same people must be coming back on a day to day basis, simply because they love the stream so much. When sponsoring these streamers, you can expect a consistent pattern in your ROI.
However, while slow follower growth may be a bad thing, it can also be a positive. When a streamer has a decent CCV and low follower growth, you know that the viewers in this stream are MUCH more connected to the streamer than if they had only been there for a short time. Think of it like a long-lasting friendship. This can also mean the number of word of mouth referrals within the community will be much higher than compared to the alternative.
On the other hand, a streamer with many new followers and a high CCV means that the streamer’s popularity has been increasing by a large amount, and you can expect to see more growth in the near future.
If you find a streamer will high follower growth and your goals are to get as many eyes on your product as possible, this is your streamer to go with. Not only will you be able to say with confidence that a lot of people will see your product, but you’ll also know that, in the short run, your ROI is likely to keep increasing.
However, the downside to these streamers is that their stream metrics are volatile. Popular streamers that rise to fame shortly can almost be considered a fad. While there are a lot of people watching, their long-term metrics are sure to decline and you’ll see a drop in your ROI over time. You also know that the fanbase for the streamer might not be as matured as compared to a streamer who has the same viewers coming back on a day to day basis.
Over time, we’ll be updating this post with more and more Twitch analytics as we continue to nurture our analytics platform. We’re pretty excited for what we have in store in terms of advanced analytics, and we know you will be too.
If you’re interested in working with Twitch streamers and toying with these analytics yourself, feel free to sign up to PowerSpike and sponsor your first streamers. There’s no better way to learn than to do it yourself.
Thanks for reading!
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