Battle classics

Direct advertising (seeding) in Telegram-a mechanism for placing ads in channels, chats, or bots through cooperation with their administrators. Traditionally, this is a picture or video of up to 15 seconds, a small text (with any emoji’s), and a link/button to another channel, bot, or external resource.

The most proven and simple method, which is used by the absolute majority, because the start-up capital can be minimal (and possibly even zero, because channels can promote each other by barter). However, unlike targeted advertising, there will be no restrictions on the topics, form, and content of posts.

Seeding helps you quickly gain subscribers and increase brand awareness. This is a great way to announce events or promotions. It is the closest to native advertising, because it can be integrated seamlessly into the channel's content. Let's see how this can be done.

We ourselves with a mustache

Stage I: Channel selection

You decided to find channels yourself, prepare posts, and negotiate with the channel owner. We help you:

First of all, contact the services with Telegram channel analytics. What opportunities they give you:

• View channel statistics without having to analyze each post yourself.
• Select channels by topic (since today there is no easy search in the messenger itself)

For example, the Tgstat service divides channels into different categories and compares them using the following parameters:

The platform presents information in the form of clear graphs, which you can track, the dynamics over different time periods.

Also, among the advantages, we will highlight the presence of the "Related Channels" and "Similar channels" buttons. Linked channels allow you to view all groups created by the same administrator. This makes it easier to find a whole thematic grid and order a whole package of placements. Similar channels (by topic and number of subscribers) reduce the search time.

The nuance is that working even with a convenient tool requires a lot of care and skill. It will not be easy to understand all the statistics yourself. Moreover, the full range of channel analytics requires a Premium subscription. Without it, you won't know where and when this audience came from. So you can accidentally invest your advertising budget in high subscribers or in an overbought channel that was previously devoted to a completely different topic.

Among the useful services, we also highlight Botstat, which allows you to see bot analytics. And here, too, there are pitfalls. Every time a site is updated, automatic loading of bot statistics is disabled, and their creators must reconnect bots to the site's registry. Therefore, these statistics should be checked for relevance.

Another thing to keep in mind: your information bubble. Try not to rely on your own preferences for channels and formats, so as not to choose places for promotion subjectively.

Stage II: approval

You have selected a channel and contacted its administrator. Next, you'll show your creative and most likely be told to adjust it to the channel's specifics. This way it will look more organic, which means it won't annoy your subscribers. The cost of placing ads is also negotiated individually. Be prepared that channel owners can advertise some products or services only for an increased price or refuse to do so at all.

Most channels work on a full prepayment basis. There may be conflicts of interest due to the fact that not all channel administrators have sole proprietors or are self-employed, which means that they accept payment only by regular transfer to a bank card.

There is only one last moment left: we mark ads in accordance with Federal Law-38 "On Advertising"!

Now we are waiting and carefully monitoring that the post is correctly posted at the designated time. There are unscrupulous administrators and, alas, without a contract, no one is immune from fraud.

Stage III: collecting statistics

You need to collect statistics not only for AD units (once a day), but also for your own understanding of the success of your ad campaign. If you don't have an agreement with the channel owner about the report, then don't forget to view the collected coverage before the post is deleted. After deleting the statistics, you can view them in TGStat in the feed section by checking the "Deleted posts" box.

All three stages are really difficult and we are proud of everyone who bravely goes to them. Especially those who pull off this trick with dozens of channels in one ad campaign. Is it possible to do this if you have a large budget and hundreds of ads are planned? The impossible is possible (c). But we recommend that you contact specialists.

Advertising platforms and agencies

If you are ready to delegate some tasks to an automated system or specialists, we will tell you what awaits you.

Social media advertising platforms

There are many of them, and most of them are intuitive. Usually, the mechanics of working with them are as follows:

1. Authorization
2. Selection of channel topics
3. Specify the number of subscribers per channel and the approximate coverage you need (you will immediately see the cost of placing ads on all relevant channels)
4. Top up your balance
5. Upload your creative to the template
6. Fill in the data for ad labeling
7. Choose the date and time of placement

After that, you will need to wait for a response from the channel administrators. You will see confirmations of your reservation, offers for other times, or cancellations.

All funds required for payment are frozen on the platform. This is necessary to protect the advertiser from violations of the placement terms. Posts are uploaded automatically, exactly as you wanted them to be, but the channel owner can delete the creative ahead of time. In this case, the money for paying for this ad will be immediately refunded to you (even if they deleted it an hour before the deadline).

Among the advantages of automatic platforms, it is worth noting the automatic collection of statistics. The post receives its own marking and sends statistics about itself on a daily basis. The platform can also have convenient reporting tools: dynamic graphs with analytics, the ability to upload a report as a document, and so on.

Agencies

They also work in conjunction with advertising platforms, but they are responsible for selecting channels, creating creatives, and filling in data for Yandex. Direct ads. All you need to do is fill out their brief and pay for the service and advertising. Just like that, there's nothing to add! Professionals know best the trends and forecasts of advertising in Telegram, so they can do it efficiently and quickly.

Goals justify the means

Direct advertising remains the most accessible and convenient tool for promotion on Telegram. Its wide range of tools will help you attract customers with clinging creatives and not limit yourself to the volume and content of the text. If you plan to place ads within 10 posts, it will be perfectly normal to run ads yourself by manually selecting channels in the TGStat analytics service.

But if you need to spin off an advertising company with large reach, where dozens or hundreds of ads are published. In this case, you can't do without helpers.

Advertising platforms allow you to speed up the matching process and protect you from scammers, but they also cannot guarantee that the channels you select will bring the desired conversions. Agencies are the best way to conduct a large advertising campaign and get maximum conversion, because each stage will be performed by professionals in their field.

Each method has its own advantages, and on the way to developing your channel, you should try each of them. We wish you good luck and great coverage!