Telegram Ads is 160 characters, a channel list, and a TON bill
I wrote my first Telegram ad on a train. One hundred and sixty characters, a button that opened a public channel, a short list of other public channels I actually read, and a CPM in TON. That is the official product. It is smaller than the phrase "Telegram Ads platform" sounds, and more strict than the people selling "Telegram ads packages" want it to be.
The official platform lives at ads.telegram.org. You log in with a Telegram account. You make a sponsored message. It can show in public one-to-many channels that have at least 1,000 subscribers. You pick those channels. You pay for views in Toncoin. The channel owner is supposed to receive half of that revenue. Nobody at Telegram is reading your contacts to decide who sees it.
This is not a post about buying extra accounts so you can advertise. It is not a post about unofficial services that blast groups and call that advertising. I have used the official cabinet. I have also been pitched the other thing. They are not cousins.
What a sponsored message is allowed to be
Each ad is a short text and a button. The text cap is 160 characters, including spaces. That is not a suggestion. I have deleted adjectives I liked because the preview went red.
The button has to open a Telegram destination. Official docs are blunt: the URL is a t.me link or an @username, pointing at a channel or a bot. You may put one matching link in the body. Both links must go to the same place. External sites are not allowed. URL shorteners are not allowed. If your real landing page is a website, you advertise a Telegram channel or bot that then does the rest of the work. The ad itself will not carry people off the app.
The destination has to look finished: a profile photo, a real about text, a bot that actually answers, a channel that has posted in the last two weeks. Empty shells get declined. You also do not get to shout. No line breaks, no bullet lists, no ASCII art, no emoji pile. Political ads, gambling, get-rich-quick: out. I write the 160 characters as if they will appear under someone else's journalism. Because they will.
You pick channels, not people
This is the part I wish more explainers led with.
Telegram Ads does not let you target a 28-year-old in São Paulo who likes sneakers. It lets you name public channels. t.me/durov is the example they use. You are buying context: the room the ad appears in. You are not buying a dossier.
The ad is labeled. It does not show up in private chats or in your chat list. Premium users can turn the ads off, which I respect even when it shrinks the inventory. Once an ad is created, the targeting list is frozen. You can edit the text, the URL, the CPM, and you can raise the budget. You cannot swap the channel list. The official workaround is "Create a similar ad." I treat that as a feature.
If a channel is under 1,000 subscribers, it is not inventory. Match the language of the room. I pick channels I would actually read. The statistics tab shows views and, more usefully, how many people joined your channel or started your bot after seeing the ad. I watch the second number.
The bill is in TON, the split is half
You set a CPM, cost per thousand views. The floor on the official platform is 0.1 Toncoin. That is the technical minimum, not a promise you will win the slot at 0.1. Competitive rooms clear higher. I start low on a channel I do not know, then raise the CPM in small steps if the ad sits there pretty and undelivered.
Budget is a cap, not a subscription. The ad runs until that cap is spent, or until you pause it, or until review kills it. You can raise a budget. You cannot nibble one down in place; stop and delete, or clone the ad with a smaller number. Funds you put into the ads balance are for ads.
Login is a Telegram login. You enter the account's phone number at ads.telegram.org and confirm a message from Telegram's verified service account. You can run ads as yourself, or attach an organization to a chat you own so that chat's admins can see spend.
Channel owners get 50% of the revenue from sponsored messages shown in their channels. Withdrawals go through Fragment, in TON. I am renting a paragraph under their work. If you are a channel owner, the path is Settings, Statistics, Monetization.
Agencies exist if you want someone else to hold the TON and the creative. Ask which cabinet they mean: Telegram's own, or a desk standing in front of it. The desk we run is the second kind, and it is a real product, not a footnote. I get to it after the table.
What this is not
It is not a way to advertise in groups. Sponsored messages are for public channels. I keep having to say that, because the unofficial pitch always starts in a group. The official ad will not carry an external URL. It is not lookalike targeting or a pixel. If a page promises "Telegram ads" and then talks about scraping members, close it.
It is also not a media kit for a channel you just opened. A public channel with 40 subscribers cannot receive these ads. If you are building a channel that might one day carry ads, the creation date is a masthead, not a media kit. Earn the 1,000 people first.
The official platform is the right first stop if you have a Telegram destination worth sending people to. If you do not, write the channel. Then write the 160 characters.
| Official Ads | A post in your own channel | Unofficial "Telegram ads" blast | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where it shows | Public channels you list, 1,000+ subscribers | Your channel, to people who already joined | Groups, DMs, wherever they dump it |
| Format | 160 characters plus a Telegram URL | Whatever you write | Whatever they send |
| How you pay | CPM in TON, floor 0.1 | You already paid in work | A shop invoice |
| Targeting | A channel list, not personal data | None | A scraped list, if anything |
| Who gets paid | You spend. The host channel keeps 50% | You | The blaster |
| Review | Telegram reads the ad and the destination | Nobody | Nobody you want |
The middle column is still the best "ad" I run. The left column is how I borrow someone else's middle column. The right column is how people get channels banned and then ask why ads "don't work on Telegram."
Why this lesson lives on our site
A blog post that only explains ads.telegram.org is a free help article for Telegram. This one exists because we sell the same official card as a service.
I still open the cabinet when I want to babysit CPM by the hour. Most people who search telegram ads platform do not want that login. They want the 160-character sponsored message, and they do not want their Telegram account to become "the advertiser."
That is Telegram Ads on TgFather.
We file official Sponsored Messages on our cabinet. You never receive that login. You build the card in a live preview (channels, bots, or search), you pick a USD budget, we add a flat 10% service fee, and you pay from a crypto wallet. We fund the TON. Your total does not move with the coin. The budget is refundable until we submit. After submit, Telegram's advertising credit is spent. Shops that promise a full refund on a live campaign are not talking about this rail.
| ads.telegram.org | Our desk | |
|---|---|---|
| You are | The advertiser | The customer. We are the advertiser |
| Login | Your Telegram account at the official cabinet | None |
| Pay | TON on their rails | USD from a crypto wallet |
| Extra | Their deposit and CPM | Flat 10% on the budget you chose |
| Before you pay | Their form | A live preview, then we file |
| Refund | Their rules | Until we submit |
If you want the hour-by-hour sliders, stay on ads.telegram.org. If you want the card and not the cabinet, the order page is Telegram Ads. The shop writeup of the same rail is Buy Telegram Ads without an ads.telegram.org login.
I still keep a small cabinet boring when I file my own: one destination I would show a friend, a channel list I would read, a CPM I will raise if I am ignored. When the statistics show joins, I write another 160. When they show only views, I change the sentence or I leave that room. That habit is the same whether you file it or we do.
FAQ
Can I put my website in the ad if I also include a Telegram link?
No. Channel or bot, t.me or @. If either link leaves the app, expect a decline. Put the website in the channel bio or in a bot reply after someone has arrived.
Do Premium users see sponsored messages?
Premium is sold in part as an ad-off switch. Treat those people as missing from the inventory. I write for the free readers of the channels I picked.
Can I target by city, age, or device?
Not on the official sponsored-message product. You target channels. Language should match. If a vendor is selling age-and-city Telegram ads, they are talking about a different product.
What if I need to change the channel list after the ad is live?
You cannot edit targeting in place. Clone it with "Create a similar ad" and retire the old one if you do not want both spending.
Who gets the money when my ad appears in someone else's channel?
You pay Telegram in TON. The host channel is meant to receive 50%, withdrawn via Fragment. If an owner DMs you offering "direct placement," that is a side deal, not the ads platform.
My destination is a bot. Does the ad have to use a start parameter?
It may. Use a start parameter if you need to know the tap came from that creative. Do not use the bot as a dumb redirect off Telegram. Reviewers wrote that trick down as a reject reason.
Do I need an ads.telegram.org account to use TgFather?
No. We hold the cabinet. You hold the destination and the budget. The page is Telegram Ads.
If I already have a cabinet, why would I still use the desk?
You would not, unless you want USD, a live preview, and someone else to be the advertiser. I still file my own when I want the sliders.
Is your desk a different ad than the official platform?
No. Same sponsored message. Same Telegram review. We file it and fund it. A panel row that says Telegram Ads Views is the other product.