How to Advertise on Telegram in 2026#

Telegram's sponsored message network reaches 900M+ monthly active users across 500M+ public channels and groups. This guide covers everything you need to run your first campaign.

Three Ways to Buy Telegram Ads#

Telegram sells the same sponsored messages through three cabinets with fundamentally different access, pricing, and targeting:

1. EUR Ads Cabinet (via resellers)#

Access: through an authorised reseller or agency · Payment: EUR, invoiced by the reseller · Entry: from €250 (Click.ru, before commission and VAT) to €500 at other resellers; reseller commission is typically 15–20% — see tgads.net/hub/how-telegram-ads-work

A direct account with Telegram is only realistic for very large advertisers: resellers say a direct contract starts at around €2M, of which €1M is a deposit, and Telegram does not publish these numbers (eLama, Click.ru). The euro cabinet offers the richest targeting: country, language, interests, specific channels, bots, search keywords and retargeting. It's the default choice for brands that need geo or language targeting.

2. Gram Cabinet (self-serve, formerly the TON cabinet)#

Access: ads.telegram.org · Payment: Gram (GRAM, formerly Toncoin), topped up via Fragment from a TON wallet · Entry: a deposit of about 20 Gram, per practitioners · Minimum CPM: 0.1 Gram

Toncoin was renamed Gram on 15 June 2026 (announcement); the blockchain is still called TON. The Gram cabinet serves ordinary sponsored messages — the same format as the euro cabinet — but targets only explicit lists of channels, bots and search keywords. In our archive its creatives carry the can_report: true flag. It suits crypto-native advertisers who already hold Gram and want no fiat gateway. Fragment may ask for identity verification, and practitioners report that Gram-cabinet ads are not shown to users from Russia (aksanov.digital).

3. Stars Cabinet (your own channel or bot)#

A channel or bot that earns Telegram Stars can spend them on ads for itself — and only for itself. One Star is worth $0.02 of ad credit, against $0.013 on withdrawal (Telegram API: Stars).

Creative Format Specs#

Telegram sponsored messages support three creative formats:

A. Banner Ad#

• Media: Image or video (16:9 ratio)
• Title: Up to 160 characters
• Text: Up to 1024 characters
• CTA button: Yes

B. Channel Thumbnail Ad#

• Thumbnail: Auto-pulled from target channel's profile picture
• Title: Up to 160 characters
• Text: Up to 1024 characters
• Best for: advertising TO another channel's audience using its brand recognition

C. Text-Only Ad#

• Title: Up to 160 characters
• Text: Up to 1024 characters
• Accent color: Hex color for visual differentiation
• Best for: markets where image approval is slower

Targeting Options#

Targeting Type	EUR Cabinet	Gram Cabinet
Channel list (specific URLs)	Yes	Yes
Bots and search keywords	Yes	Yes
Topic (42 categories)	Yes	No
Language (34+)	Yes	No
Country / city	Yes	No
Audience interest / retargeting	Yes	No

As of 2026-09-23. Country, language, interest and topic targeting are EUR-cabinet features; the Gram cabinet places by explicit lists of channels, bots and search keywords. One distinction worth keeping straight: running a creative in any language is not the same as targeting the user's app language — the Gram cabinet allows the first, not the second. Cabinet capabilities move, so treat this table as dated rather than permanent.

Most Telegram targeting is contextual — you reach users of specific channels, bots, search queries or content categories. Interest segments and retargeting of your own subscribers exist only in the euro cabinet. Since 28 August 2026 ads.telegram.org states only that it does not use the contents of private chats or contact lists for ad targeting.

What Top Advertisers Do Differently#

Patterns that recur across the creatives we index:

1. Hook in the first 5 words: Telegram shows only the first ~100 characters before a "read more" cut-off, so the opening words carry the offer — "Trade BTC perps with 50x leverage" rather than "Welcome to the future of decentralized finance".

2. One CTA per creative: The highest-volume advertisers (Hamster Kombat, Hyperliquid, Binance) use singular calls to action: "Join", "Trade now", "Earn HMSTR".

3. Social proof numbers: "300M players", "35M users", "Top 3 DEX by volume" — specific numbers are a recurring pattern in the creative copy we index.

4. Language-native creative: Advertisers with the widest geographic footprint run creatives in 5+ languages rather than English-only; Russian, Indonesian and Arabic variants are common in our archive.

5. Rotating creative pool: The top 20 advertisers in Telegram Ads Spy's database run 10+ creative variants simultaneously. Telegram's frequency capping means users see each creative at most a few times — variety extends campaign life.

Common Mistakes#

❌ Submitting creatives that mention competitors by name — Telegram's review team rejects comparative advertising

❌ "Guaranteed returns" language — banned across all financial verticals; expect automatic rejection

❌ Low-quality images — Telegram renders 16:9 banners prominently; blurry or text-heavy images perform poorly

❌ Targeting too broadly — "all crypto channels" on a small daily cap spreads impressions too thin to be measurable

❌ No UTM tracking — Telegram doesn't share conversion data; you must add UTM parameters to landing pages to measure campaign performance

Getting Access to the EUR Cabinet#

1. Choose an authorised reseller — entry from €250 to €500; eLama also lets you start with no upfront payment and pay monthly for actual spend
2. Get your euro-cabinet account through the reseller and fund it in EUR (commission typically 15–20% on top of spend)
3. Submit creative for review (usually 24–72 hours)
4. Launch with channel, language or country targeting

For the Gram cabinet: open an account at ads.telegram.org, top it up in Gram through Fragment from a TON wallet such as Tonkeeper or MyTonWallet, then submit creative.

Monitoring Competitors#

Telegram Ads Spy archives every sponsored message shown in Telegram across 9,000+ channels. Use the archive to:

• See what creatives your competitors are running
• Track creative rotation patterns and campaign intensity
• Identify which channel categories competitors target
• Research new verticals before entering them

Live data: /api/v1/ads

Methodology#

Guide based on Telegram Ads Spy's archive of Telegram sponsored messages from 557 verified advertisers. The archive records creatives — their text, media, CTA destination and the dates we saw them. It does not contain CPM, spend, click or conversion data; the budget figures above come from Telegram's published pages, resellers and practitioners, not our measurements.

Related Reports#

• Top Crypto Advertisers on Telegram 2026
• DeFi Advertising on Telegram
• Telegram Mini-Apps Advertising
• How to Read Telegram Ads Spy Data

tgadsspy research (2026). How to Advertise on Telegram in 2026: Complete Guide to Telegram Ads. tgadsspy.com. Retrieved from https://tgadsspy.com/blog/how-to-advertise-on-telegram-2026