Brief:

• Amazon this month started selling programmatic advertising on Twitch, the livestreaming platform that's gradually expanding its programming beyond gaming. Using Amazon Advertising, marketers can buy video and display ads on Twitch as part of their campaigns among the e-commerce giant's various digital platforms, Amazon announced.
• Marketers can now target Twitch's viewers based on their interests in contextual-based campaigns as well as Amazon's audience insights and measurement.
• Before the change, marketers had to buy ads manually on Twitch, which has about 17.5 million daily viewers, Adweek reported. Programmatic advertising lets marketers buy ad inventory through online exchanges and reach target audiences among a variety of platforms, making the buying and targeting process more efficient.

Insight:

Mobile marketers now have a more efficient way to buy ad placements on Twitch, which is a niche platform that tends to draw younger audiences who are harder to reach through traditional platforms like linear TV. With Amazon's move to add Twitch to its advertising platform, marketers can save time in buying display ads and video inserts on the livestreaming platform while integrating their campaigns with other parts of Amazon's platform, such as its e-commerce site.

Twitch is an engaging platform because it urges people to chat with their favorite streamers and support them by paying tips in virtual currency. The platform started as a way for people to share livestreams of their gaming sessions with others, but Amazon has invested in other programming such as live sports to extend its reach beyond gamers. The company this year signed a three-year deal to show National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) games on Twitch, though the pandemic later led to the suspension of live sports. Last year, Twitch livestreamed "Thursday Night Football" for 10 weeks of the NFL's regular season, and saw 45% audience growth from a year earlier. To incentivize musical artists to create content for Twitch, Amazon's music streaming service and Twitch recently partnered to let performers livestream concerts in the Amazon Music app for iOS and Android devices. 

Twitch will increase its regular viewership 14% to 37.5 million this year and reach about 16% of the U.S. audience for digital video, researcher eMarketer estimated. That growing popularity has drawn interest from advertisers, especially brands that are boosting their sponsorship spending on esports events. Among the more recent examples, LG Electronics USA this month began sponsoring a livestreamed eports series on Twitch that serves as a companion to a documentary about gamers. Fast-casual chain Chipotle Mexican Grill last month featured a gaming session on Twitch with professional skateboarder Tony Hawk as part of a co-promotion for a new menu item and a video game from Activision.

For Amazon, the addition of Twitch to its advertising platform comes as the e-commerce giant sees significant ad sales growth. Its "other" category, which mostly consists of advertising sales, experienced a 41% surge to $4.22 billion in Q2 from a year earlier, matching the 40% gain in total revenue as homebound consumers shopped remotely during pandemic. The surge in online ordering led Amazon to delay its annual Prime Day shopping event, which is tentatively scheduled for next month, CNBC reported, though the company hasn't confirmed the U.S. date.