Twitch viewer hours are not created equal
For sponsored streaming, agencies trade viewer hours like a commodity. The reality isn’t that simple.
In my last post I covered how using viewer hours and average concurrents to compare Overwatch League and the LCS can lead one to believe that the two are almost identical when, in fact, the median Overwatch League viewer is watching the broadcast for 48% longer.
Today I’ll go over how those basic stream metrics can also mislead brands and sponsors into investing in the wrong media.
Current State of Sponsored Streaming
Deriving advanced analytics from platforms such as Twitch is difficult. Because of this, agencies that work in sponsored streaming are forced to use viewer hours and average concurrents to decide the best channels for sponsor content.
Though these metrics are good for measuring the volume of content generated, the key question brands and sponsors should be be asking is how much time are viewers actually spending with my sponsored content?
Kings of the Hill
Ninja, Shroud, DrDisrespect, Lirik.
These four channels are virtually Twitch institutions and are often considered the gold standard for sponsorships. For March of 2018 they account for just over 7% of all of the viewer hours generated on Twitch. Though their reach is clear, how long their viewers stay on stream tells a much more nuanced story.
Looking at how long their viewers stay, what we call their engagement distributions, three things stand out:
- Of the four channels only Lirik’s engagement distribution compares favorably to the average Twitch channel.
- Ninja and Shroud retain their audiences respectably, however, their median viewers spend roughly 12% less time on their channels than on the average Twitch channel.
- DrDisrespect has a disappointingly low viewer retention rate. His median viewer watches for just over 13 minutes, a shocking 46% lower than the median viewer on the average Twitch channel.
The sheer amount of content generated by these channels is undeniable, but outside of Lirik, volume comes at measurable cost. Thankfully there are thousands of alternatives that can achieve volume without sacrificing audience engagement.
You just need to know where to look.
Healthy Alternatives
The question every marketer needs to ask: is my strategy purely a volume based play? Or should audience engagement be the KPI to measuring against?
The Twitch ecosystem hosts a massive but sprawling community of streamers and viewers. Finding the channels that produce a high volume of engaging content can be a challenge, but becomes easy using the engagement distribution.
The channels above are four out of thousands that have above average audience retention that also produce content in volume.
The median viewer of each of these channels spends 50% more time on these channels compared to the average Twitch channel. Moreover, these channels also significantly outperform the most popular channels in terms of audience retention.
Plotting the median viewer for each of these channels produces even more staggering results:
The median viewer for the alternatives watch for nearly two times longer than on the biggest channels.
The question every marketer needs to ask: is my strategy purely a volume based play? Or should audience engagement be the KPI to measuring against?
Key Takeaways
Brands and sponsors each have their own requirements, so how their campaigns are deployed is ultimately a judgement call. The key is to be armed with the information necessary to make those calls.
There are thousands more channels like these alternative streams. Waypoint’s engagement distribution makes it easy to find all of the channels that have both a reasonably high viewership as well as high audience engagement.
About Waypoint Media
Waypoint Media is a data company that focuses on quantifying audiences across third party platforms such as Twitch, Youtube, Twitter and Facebook.
Email me at: kevin@waypointmedia.com, I’d love to learn about how we can work together.
