Ads, Analytics, and More Are All Getting Better on Twitch

The online streaming network Twitch has disclosed its features roadmap for the period 2023, which includes alterations to pre-roll advertisements, the addition of new chat engagement tools, and additional choices to assist customers in better managing their sponsor relationships. According to Twitch’s chief product officer Tom Verrilli and chief monetization officer Mike Minton, one of the most significant changes that are on the horizon is the modification of pre-roll advertisements to make them less obnoxious. This change is contingent on Twitch members being able to commit to running three minutes of ads every hour.

“If you run three minutes of advertisements every hour in any form, this will disable all pre-rolls; they will no longer need to be broken into 90-second ads every 30 minutes,” says one source. Twitch is also working with features that will alert users when the broadcast they are viewing is about to enter an ad break. These capabilities are being developed specifically for mid-roll advertisements. According to Verrilli and Minton, Twitch may even add a snooze option for these types of promos in the near future. Twitch is also working on special assets that will be field-tested by a select few streamers first, in an effort to make these deals feel more “effective and authentic” on the platform. These assets will be made available to streamers who are interested in making their sponsorship deals stand out from the crowd.

Streamers can easily place these brand assets onto streams, above chat, and other places on your channel page for a less disruptive and more engaging sponsorship experience,” Verrilli and Minto added. “Starting with channel skins and clickable branded graphics, streamers can easily place these brand assets.” Twitch will provide more information on viewer demographics, the optimal streaming times based on this data, offline streaming solutions, and an enhanced mobile viewing experience that is being designed to be more comparable to what desktop users view. All of these features pertain to the technical side of running a channel.

Twitch is working on developing additional tools that can be used to promote channels on other platforms. These tools may include the ability to export clips for vertical short-form video formats like those used by TikTok or YouTube Shorts. Streamers will have the ability to enhance these video with emotes and pin as many as 20 of these clips to a channel page. Lastly, a brand new monetization tool called Sound Bites will be made available to viewers in the form of a new feature called Sound Bites. This tool will enable viewers to pay in order to activate sound alerts. Twitch intends to make more official announcements as each of these features goes live, and all of these modifications will be implemented gradually over the course of time.