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IGTV Monetization Is Coming, Which Could Make It a Much More Significant Consideration
IGTV hasn’t seemingly gained a heap of traction as an entertainment option as yet, but Instagram has repeatedly noted that it has options, that it can still make IGTV a more significant consideration for viewers and creators.
Could this be how it becomes a much bigger deal?
As you can see in these screenshots, posted by reverse engineering expert Jane Manchun Wong, Instagram appears to be close to rolling out a new monetization program for IGTV creators.
As noted in the description:
“You can earn money by running short ads on your IGTV videos. When you monetize on IGTV, you agree to follow the Partner Program Monetization Policies.”
The capacity to generate real, direct income from IGTV could be a big lure for top creators, who can already generate revenue from YouTube and Facebook. The lack of monetization tools for IGTV has been seen as a significant factor in it not becoming a bigger hit, but if it were able to provide a new income stream for influencers, that could bring them and their large audiences across to Instagram’s video platform.
Of course, the truth lies in the detail. As you can see in the screenshots, there will be eligibility thresholds of some kind for IGTV monetization, but what those thresholds are we don’t know as yet. One Twitter user has suggested that they could be similar to the requirements to add ‘Swipe up’ links to Instagram Stories – 10,000 followers and/or a verified account.
That would make sense, enabling Instagram to set some marker in order to maintain content quality – while the other, maybe even bigger consideration, is how IGTV will split the revenue from its ads.
You would expect Instagram to go with the same 55/45 split that’s in effect for both YouTube and Facebook – but then again, what if Instagram didn’t do that? What if they went with, say, 60% to the creator and 40% to the platform? That would be interesting. Those few percentage points seem minor, and they probably wouldn’t make any significant difference for Insta – which, it was recently reported, brought in about $20 billion in advertising revenue in 2019.
But they could make a big difference to creators. If Instagram, and parent company Facebook, really want to make IGTV a bigger consideration, a more creator balanced revenue split could be a big thing.
And if it does, indeed, become a bigger thing, that would also make it another consideration for Instagram advertisers, with the potential to reach large audiences via IGTV content.
At present we have no insight, we only have a couple of screenshots, but given the history of Wong’s discoveries, we’ll likely learn more about it in about six weeks. So that puts it at about mid-March – expect to see something more on IGTV’s next big shift then.
UPDATE: Instagram has confirmed that IGTV monetization is in testing, while Instagram chief Adam Mosseri has added that IGTV is “growing” which is why they’re now looking to the next phase.