Are you doing better than you did last year? By what measure? Do you have data to back up that assertion? Today we’re going to look at year over year metrics.
If you’re a newer streamer or didn’t track much data in the past you should read this article but there won’t be many immediate action steps for you beyond start collecting data. Still, it’s good to know that it’s something you should be working towards in the future.
Why compare year over year?
The more data you can meaningfully parse about your business the better you will know how things are going, if you need to make a course correction, and you can be better at identifying things that went well. This all helps you plan for the future and make smarter moves.
Metrics to compare
Here are some suggestions on what you could add to your year over year comparison. This isn’t a fully comprehensive list and there may be things that are very relevant to your stream you need to add in as well.
Viewership
This one’s relatively easy to compare because there are multiple ways to track down the data if you don’t have it. You can find it on your Twitch dashboard or through something like SocialBlade.
However, there’s some nuance that you need to bring in to the analysis. Did something about your stream change that might have a big impact on viewership numbers? For instance, did you have a front page stint, join a big stream team, change games to something popular, or have to take a significant amount of time off? All of those would change your viewership numbers more than you would expect from doing your normal thing day in and day out.
Finally, I think it makes sense to look at viewership month to month. Day to day is a little too granular unless you’re trying to find the impact of specific games or events.
Chat Activity
This one’s harder to track, for sure. It’s often something you can track if you have a rewards bot in the channel but that’s the only source for data that I know
If you do use a bot that gives you that kind of data your chat can be an interesting, though not entire story for, community engagement. Are more people talking than before? Fewer? Is that something you want?
It may make sense to normalize your chat activity against your viewership. After all, if you double your viewers but chat activity only goes up a little you may have to work to engage the newer viewers.
Subs
Yeah, I think this one is pretty obvious. Subs translate directly to revenue so it’s quite important to track your trends on subs. Luckily, this is also something where you likely have good data from Twitch. Clearly these vary month to month but it’s good to track the trend.
Now that Twitch has gift and Prime subs I also encourage you to break out and track those separately. Their new monetization dashboard gives you the data you need to do this. The reason it’s important to track them separately is because they’re less dependable for revenue. People have to choose to end a regular subscription but these fall off automatically and require effort to renew. Anything that requires effort is less likely to happen. We’re human.
Tips/Bits/Financial support
Similarly, it’s good to get a sense of how you’re doing on all kinds of financial support. Your community support is what enables you to stream full time.
Whatever service you use for collecting tips will have data on your month to month revenue. Track that stuff!
Revenue
It’s time to combine all of your sources of income and see how you’re doing in total.
This is an area where the analysis can depend heavily on your knowledge of the stream’s direction. After all, it could be that you’re transitioning from pure community support and instead emphasizing sponsorships. In the short term that might yield less revenue though in the long term it’s right for the stream’s health.
Similarly, if you’re doing a charity streaming month each year it’s good to know that and not despair at your income figures from that month.
While the numbers tell some of the story it needs your interpretation.
Expenses
Exactly what it sounds like. Compare your spending over time. As you grow you usually spend more. Just make sure that your spending is in line with your growth and geared towards your goals.
Expenses can become a problem if you get comfortable with your income and start spending like mad. Tracking your expenses can help you catch and reverse that trend.
Growth Rate
It is important to consider your growth rate. You might be experiencing an increase in your gross revenue but a decrease in your growth rate year over year.
You calculate growth rate with some simple math. All you need to do is calculate (Year2/Year1)-1. So if you had $60,000 in gross revenue and $45,000 in gross revenue last year your growth rate would be (60,000/45,000)-1 or 33%.
But what if, to continue the example, two years ago you made $30,000? In that case your growth rate is ($45,000/$30,000) or 50%. While you increased your revenue by the same amount your growth rate dropped.
Seasonality/Seasonal Trends
This one can be a bit harder to track and is likely the last, sequentially, that you want to look at. The reason there is it depends on all of your other metrics to do an analysis.
Streaming is inherently seasonal. Summertime means kids are out of school and watching more streams. The end of the year has school out but also has your community spending more on gifts and potentially less on your stream.
It’s your job to find the months/seasons that are normally good or bad for your stream. That way you can prepare for them!
Conclusion
You should look at year over year (and month over month) metrics for your stream. As a business owner it’s your responsibility to know how your business is doing and look for ways you can improve. The best way to do that is with data. This is how you get some of that relevant data! Make it a routine practice; you don’t need to do this daily or even monthly but perhaps quarterly.
You don’t have to figure this out alone. This is what we do- help streamers make great money decisions. If that’s something that sounds interesting to you reach out me or schedule some time for a free consult. You can check out what I do here.
