In October 2021, a list of earnings for Twitch streamers was leaked which showed that most of the revenues earned on the platform go to the top 1% of creators, meaning that, even though accessible and popular, streaming might not be as lucrative as some might think.
So what can streamers do to earn money if they have just a couple hundred subscribers? Well, inStreamly is a company that is looking to provide the answer.
In layman’s terms, the company works to help smaller streamers get increased revenue from their audience through its platform. Esports Insider sat down with Global Partnerships Director Jakub Janaszek and Co-Founder Wiktoria Wójcik to discuss how it looks to solve the streaming monetisation problem and grow its operations worldwide.
Behind the idea
One of the main problems that smaller streamers face is that while they might have a loyal audience, the sheer number of viewers is not large enough for them to secure partnerships with larger brands.
“If you have 100 concurrent viewers, a brand like, for example, Samsung can not deal with you because they would need to deal with 10 or 20 or 50 of you to have a meaningful reach, Wójcik explained.
“So we have the majority of the streaming market not able to earn on their passion and work. On the other hand, we have brands without access to these communities which are often more engaged.”
inStreamly’s in-house platform enables streamers to connect with brands after a brief setup time.
This hub provides opportunities for both sides of the equation. Streamers can improve their potential earnings by choosing brands on inStreamly for their platform, while brands have the opportunity to reach multiple small-to-medium-sized streamers with loyal fans.
However, securing a sponsor is not the only factor that needs to be considered. It needs to be able to feel authentic, whilst also grabbing viewers’ attention. If not, it runs the risk of devaluing a small, up-and-coming, streamer’s platform.
Wójcik highlighted that inStreamly has over 40 mechanisms that respond to the game being played, chat messages, situations happening in the game and so forth, making it a customisable experience for brands and streamers.
“The basic thing we do is, instead of putting a logo on a stream that is always there, we turn it into animations that are visible for a certain time in an hour. The streamers get paid for the number of people who have seen the sponsored content on their stream in that exact moment,” she said.
Taking inStreamly global
After initially finding its footing in Poland, the company has eyed expansion into foreign markets for the last four years. Two years ago, inStreamly entered France, Germany, Czechia and Spain. With more markets in Europe opening, the company realised that, in order to move to global expansion, connecting with local companies in target regions was the way to go.
“Even though gaming is global and our technology can work anywhere, we realised that it doesn’t really work for local business development,” explained Jakub Janaszek, inStreamly’s Global Partnerships Director.
“Each marketing department of big brands works locally and they spend their budgets and promote specific products. We decided that instead of investing more in scaling markets, we wanted to find partners to do it together.”
Right now the company operates in nearly 30 countries and has a network of more than 125,000 streamers worldwide, largely due to the fact that inStreamly has optimised itself as a white label solutions provider. The company’s white label product is present in Brazil (WARRIOR STREAMING), Ukraine (StreamAdvisor), Japan (StreamPot), Spain (014 Live!), and many more countries and regions. Moreover, inStreamly operates under its own brand Poland, Germany and France.
Still, a product like inStreamly is only as good as the opportunities it provides. Without brands willing to give this more unconventional method a shot, it becomes a lot harder to help monetise smaller streamers.
When asked about its previous partners, inStreamly noted that it has worked with streamers globally to help deliver campaigns for McDonald’s, Samsung, Netflix, Adidas, LEGO, KIA, KFC, Microsoft, Xbox, Nvidia and SteelSeries, among many others.
In 2022, inStreamly worked with food brand Danone on a campaign for their product Danio. On Fortnite streams, every time a player’s health decreased, a pop-up appeared on the stream featuring a character called ‘Small Hunger’, taunting players before an animation for Danio appeared. According to the company, the campaign was viewed over 650,000 thousand times.
In Brazil, the company worked with female streamers and cosmetic company O Boticário to create a campaign that reacted to in-game events. When a streamer eliminated an opponent, hit a headshot, or finished a match, product and campaign information was shown on screen. The campaign saw more than 1.5m views and supported more than 60 streamers.
For platforms like inStreamly, one of the key components in helping create campaigns and secure sponsors for multiple smaller streamers is identifying the market that is being targeted.
Janaszek explained that it’s important to factor in the market’s regional structure. Countries like France or the UK are well established, with brands in these regions typically working with media agencies. Meanwhile, brands in countries like Ukraine have more direct relationships with fewer media agencies.
Highlighting where the brand will be featured is also crucial. In Japan, YouTube is the most popular streaming platform, whereas other regions prefer Twitch or Facebook.
No matter the environment though, InStreamly’s partnerships work through the use of a revenue sharing model, Janaszek explained: “If we start a partnership, it’s a revenue share model. Even if both sides need to invest in marketing, people and technology, there are no money investments.
“That is why the process of partnering valuation is very important for us, because if we invest a lot in terms of technology and exclusivity and insights, we need to make sure that we can scale together. If we sell a campaign, we split the fee between the partner, inStreamly and the streamers.”
Down the road in 2024
For 2024, inStreamly aims to scale further in its existing markets, but is also looking for partners in new regions, such as France, the United Kingdom, Portugal and the United States.
The plan is also to continue operating as inStreamly in Poland, but to establish a wider network of global partners which will benefit not just inStreamly, but their partners and streamers that decide to use the platform as well.
In an age where the streamer market is becoming more and more saturated, being able to effectively generate some sort of revenue has become increasingly difficult. However, platforms such as inStreamly, which aim to connect brands through to multiple small-scale creators, not only helps alleviate that problem for streamers, but it provides brands with more opportunities to target select demographics.
Disclaimer: This article is supported by InStreamly.