Twitch Affiliate Ads: Complete Guide

Running ads on Twitch is the most passive action a streamer can utilize in order to monetize their channel. Having a solid understanding of how advertisements work on the platform is crucial, as poor advertisement management can and will hurt your growth in the long run. Imagine getting up to an exciting moment in the stream, only for a chunk of your current audience being forced to watch a 30-second ad before returning to watch the show.

In this guide, we will cover everything you need to know about ads on Twitch and explain how you can use those pesky ad breaks to your advantage.

Can Twitch Affiliates Run Ads? 

Affiliates have the ability to run ads and earn revenue from all video ads shown while broadcasting live on their channel. Running ads are required for all affiliates and partners, and these will either be played automatically, ran manually by creators during natural breaks in their streams.

How Do Twitch Affiliate Ads Work?

Streamers earn a small portion of ad revenue for each ad watched, and it counts towards the minimum requirement of $100 USD needed to receive a monthly payout. By default, subscribers of the channel are exempt from watching ads unless the owner of the channel has decided otherwise.

Running regularly scheduled ad breaks can be good for your channel, as it will disable pre-roll advertisements, meaning new viewers will not be greeted with a 30-second ad before they even get to watch your content. Viewers are more likely to stay through an announced ad break than they are to sit through a pre-roll ad.

It is recommended that creators tell their community when an ad break is coming up, and to try to aim for running multiple, shorter ad breaks to create a more enjoyable viewing experience for everyone.

How to Run an Ad as a Twitch Affiliate

1. Step 1

   Go to your Creator Dashboard.

2. Step 2

   

   On the right-hand side of your window, you’ll see quick actions. While live, you can click on the “Run Ad Break” button.

   Keep in mind, for every 30 seconds of the ad played, pre-roll ads will be disabled for 10 minutes. So a 60-second ad will mean 20 minutes free of pre-rolls, so on and so forth.

   

   Bonus: You can click the “+” button to add additional quick actions to your dashboard. This includes video ad breaks starting at 30 seconds, and increasing at 30-second intervals all the way up to 3 minutes.

   

   Extra Special Bonus: If you own an Elgato Streamdeck, you can add the ad breaks right into the deck for quick and easy access.

How to Disable Pre-Roll Ads on Your Channel

All Twitch Partners and Affiliates have the option to disable pre-roll ads by running regular ad breaks.

Working scheduled ads breaks into your stream may feel a bit strange at first, but it will honestly give you a lot more control over your stream. Provided you follow through with running your own ads on a consistent basis, this will guarantee that newcomers will not receive an ad upon their arrival into your stream.

If you want to disable pre-roll ads in your settings:

Creator Dashboard > Settings > Affiliate/Partner > Ads

What Are Stream Display Ads?

Stream Display Ads (or SDAs for short) are Twitch’s newest form of experimental ads, with a goal of making the ads during streams less disruptive. During a display ad, the stream will scale down and shift upwards towards the top of the screen to make room for a small ad to appear on the screen for 10 seconds. Viewers will still be able to see and hear the stream while the ad is visible. A minimum of 3 ads per hour will be shown, with a max of 8 per hour. This number will likely fluctuate as Twitch collects more data on these new ads.

Stream display ads will earn creators the same rate as their video ads, but they will not contribute to reducing pre-rolls at this time. Unlike pre-roll ads, eligible streamers have the ability to disable Stream Display Ads on their channel by following this path: Creator Dashboard > Settings > Affiliate/Partner > Ads

Frequently Asked Questions

• How Much Do You Earn By Running Advertisements?

  

  Currently, all ad revenue is set to earn creators $3.50 USD CPM regardless of location. The rates are presented by the country of the user that views the advertisement, not from the location that they were running from.

• What is CPM?

  Cost Per Mille, also known as Cost Per Thousand, is a term used to value the cost of 1,000 advertisement impressions on one web page. Since Twitch ad revenue pays out at $3.50 USD CPM, this means that the creator will earn roughly .0035 cents for every view.

• Can I Enable Ads for Every Viewer?

  If you want to push ads onto everyone to really squeeze out that extra little bit of revenue, you can. Though I strongly recommend against doing this, as this will absolutely lessen the value a subscription to your channel holds compared to others. Ad-free experiences are a huge benefit to subbing to a streamer.

  To get to these in your settings:

  

  Creator Dashboard > Settings > Affiliate/Partner > Subscriptions

• What is Picture by Picture on Twitch?

  Picture-by-picture is a feature across all channels allowing viewers can still watch the stream in a smaller window during an ad break. Previously, this feature was limited to only gaming categories but has since opened up to every category. (This does not include pre-roll ads).

• Who Sees Ads on Twitch?

  Unfortunately, if you are watching a partnered or affiliated streamer, you will be subjected to watching ads at one point or another. The only way a channel will not have ads is if you are currently subscribed, or if it happens to be neither a partner nor an affiliate account, as required ad breaks are written into the onboarding contracts.

• How to Avoid Ads on Twitch?

  For $8.99 USD a month, you can purchase Twitch Turbo, which covers you all throughout the platform. A subscription to Turbo means you will get to experience ad-free viewing. (with limited exceptions) Even in channels that you are not subscribed to, there will be no pre-roll, mid-roll, companion, or display ads. However, you may still be shown promotions and ads that are embedded into a broadcast or, on rare occasions, delivered with certain simulcast content.

  You’ll also receive an exclusive Twitch Turbo chat badge, access to additional emotes, custom username colors, and it will also extend your broadcast storage to 60 days, instead of the standard 14 days.