How to launch Telegram Ads — step-by-step guide

This guide walks through the practical steps to run your first Telegram Ads campaign. It assumes you are doing it yourself; if you want a team to run it, see g.media.

#1. Choose your cabinet

Most launches start in the **euro cabinet** because it has the richest targeting (country, language, interests, channels, bots, search, retargeting). Pick the **Gram cabinet (formerly the TON cabinet)** for fast, cheap channel-level tests of a crypto or Telegram-native product when you know exactly which channels your audience reads — it targets only the channels, bots and search keywords you list. Pick **Stars** if your channel or bot already earns Stars and you want to promote that same channel or bot — Stars cannot promote anything else.

See /wiki/eur-vs-ton-vs-stars for the deeper decision tree.

#2. Get access (days, not weeks)

**Euro cabinet** — you do not sign up for it directly unless you are a very large advertiser: resellers say a direct contract with Telegram starts at around €2 million, of which €1 million is a deposit, and Telegram does not publish these numbers (eLama). Everyone else goes through an authorised reseller or agency, which signs a contract with your company and opens the cabinet for you:

• Click.ru accepts a first top-up from €250 (before commission and VAT) since 9 February 2026 (Click.ru); other resellers ask for €500
• eLama lets you start with no upfront payment and pay monthly for actual spend
• Reseller commission is typically 15–20% on top of spend, plus local taxes

**Gram cabinet** — open it yourself at **ads.telegram.org**. Practitioners cite a deposit of about 20 Gram (aksanov.digital).

#3. Top up the balance

• **Euro cabinet** — you pay the reseller in EUR, usually by bank transfer, and the reseller funds your cabinet.
• **Gram cabinet** — top up in Gram (GRAM, formerly Toncoin) through Fragment from a TON wallet such as Tonkeeper or MyTonWallet. Fragment may ask for identity verification.

#4. Build your first creative

A sponsored message has three fields:

• **Text** — up to 160 chars; its language must match the language of the targeted channels and of the destination (ad policies)
• **Banner image** (optional but recommended) — 1280×720, JPEG/PNG, under 1 MB
• **CTA button** — pointing to a channel (t.me/...), bot, account, mini-app or external website. A promoted channel must have at least one post from the two weeks before review

Don't waste a slot on weak creative — Telegram's moderation is strict on misleading copy, ALL-CAPS, excessive emojis, claims-without-disclaimer.

#5. Set targeting

In the euro cabinet:

• **Language** — required (at least one)
• **Topic categories** — pick 1–5 from Telegram's taxonomy
• **Channels allow-list** — optional, pick specific channels you want to target
• **Geo** — optional, narrows by user region

In the Gram cabinet you only list channels, bots and search keywords — there is no geo or interest targeting.

Tighter targeting = higher CPM but better conversion. For a launch test, go broader first to find which segments convert.

#6. Submit for moderation (1–4 hours)

Once submitted, the creative sits in the moderation queue. First-time advertisers usually wait longer. Expect approval in 1–4 hours during business hours, up to 24h on weekends. Rejection reasons are explained in the cabinet — fix and resubmit.

#7. Watch first 24 hours

The first day is your validation:

• **CTR baseline** — 0.3–1 % is normal for B2C, higher for very niche targeting
• **CPM baseline** — should land within your bid range; if you set €1.5 CPM and the system says €2.8 actual, raise bid or narrow targeting
• **Conversion rate** — track on your landing page, not Telegram side

If CTR is below 0.1 % after 50K impressions, creative is the problem — iterate.

#8. Scale or kill (after 3–7 days)

Common pattern: launch 3–5 creative variants, kill the bottom 2, double bid on the top. Refresh creatives every 14 days to fight /info/creative-fatigue.

#What goes wrong

The three most common failure modes:

1. **Weak landing page** — Telegram users click then bounce. Optimise landing speed + first-screen value-prop.

2. **Wrong cabinet** — running a geo-targeted B2C campaign in the Gram cabinet, which cannot target by country, when it belongs in the euro cabinet (or vice versa).

3. **Static creative** — same banner for 60 days. Fatigue kills CTR by 50 % in week 2.

#Spying on competitors first

Before launching, look at what competitors run. The Telegram Ads Spy archive shows every active creative per niche/geo — see which formats convert and which die fast.

#When to hire help

If your monthly media budget is below $2K, run it yourself. If between $5K and €100K/month, hire an agency that knows the cabinets cold. G.Media Agency works across the euro and Gram cabinets — book a 20-minute strategy call to scope your launch.