How to Create Your First Telegram Ad Campaign (2026)
To create a Telegram Ads campaign you need an ad account, a destination and a text of up to 160 characters. Choose the account type first: Euro (opened through a partner such as Adsly, from €500 of ad budget) covers a website or a Telegram destination in every available country, Russia, Ukraine, Israel and Palestine included; Stars only if your channel or bot earns Stars. Then fill in one form — title, text, link, targeting by countries, languages, topics or specific channels, CPM, budget — and submit it. Telegram declines text with gimmicky capitals, emoji, line breaks, more than one link or a URL shortener, or a language that differs from the channel's. On our accounts over 98% of campaigns got a decision within three hours.
Before You Start — What You Need
You need three things: a Telegram Ads account, something to promote, and a budget. The destination can be a channel, a bot or a Mini App on any account type; a website only on a Euro account. The budget depends on how the account is opened. Through Adsly a Euro account starts from €500 of ad budget (€1,000 for crypto and stocks; €5,000 for gambling, nutra, adult/dating and binary options). On self-serve TON there is no partner minimum: you fund the account yourself at ads.telegram.org.
Step 1 — Choose Your Account Type
The account type is the currency the account is funded in, and since 22 August 2026 all three types use the same targeting form. So targeting no longer decides the choice. The destination, the countries and the moderation do.
| If you… | Choose | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Send people to a website | Euro | External links, the in-stream video format and a custom button exist only on Euro |
| Target Russia, Ukraine, Israel or Palestine | Euro | TON-funded ads are not served in those four countries |
| Want a human to look at a borderline decline | Euro | On a Euro account opened through Adsly a declined ad can be escalated to a human reviewer |
| Promote a channel, bot or Mini App and pay in crypto | Euro | Through Adsly it is paid in any cryptocurrency, and a World account covers every available country, chosen per campaign |
| Own a channel or bot that earns Stars | Stars | Stars can be spent only by the owner, on ads for that same channel or bot |
Approval on our own accounts — the share of reviewed ads that end up approved, all niches, 3 October 2026 — is 99.9% on Stars, 95.6% on Euro and 86.8% on TON. The full comparison is in Stars vs TON vs Euro.
Step 2 — Open or Connect the Account
Option A: self-serve TON (ads.telegram.org)
- Go to ads.telegram.org → 2. Log in with Telegram → 3. Create the ad account → 4. Fund it. This is the only type you can open on your own.
Option B: a Euro account through Adsly
- Choose the niche and country at adsly.pro/cabinet → 2. Pay the invoice in any cryptocurrency → 3. We open the account on our entity, without KYC: 2 business days as standard, 4 for nutra, adult/dating and binary options → 4. You get access to the account on ads.telegram.org and to Adsly Pro Panel.
Already have an account? Sign up for Adsly Pro Panel — the Free plan costs $0 and sign-up includes a 3-day Pro trial — and connect the account with the browser extension or phone verification.
Step 3 — Set Your Targeting
The form is the same on Euro, TON and Stars. You pick one of four targets:
- Users — by country (229 options), language (71), topic of interest (41) and device, or by the audience of specific channels.
- Channels — a list of specific channels, or channel language plus channel topics. Telegram does not combine the two: with a channel list the language and topic fields stay empty, and topics require exactly one language.
- Bots — specific bots in which the ad is shown.
- Search — keywords; people searching for those terms see the ad.
Channel list (the easiest start). Pick channels you know your customers read, open each one, and ask whether your ad would look at home there. A short list you have actually read beats hundreds of channels found by keyword, because you can explain every result.
Countries and topics. Choose the countries, then two or three topics closest to the offer. This reaches further with less research. On a Euro account one ad takes at most 8 countries; for more, create one campaign per country.
One geographic limit applies whatever you pick: TON-funded ads are not served in Russia, Ukraine, Israel and Palestine.
Step 4 — Write Your Ad Text
Telegram’s ad guidelines are short, and almost every decline traces back to one of them:
- 160 characters at most, spaces included.
- One link. No second link in the text and no URL shorteners.
- No gimmicks: no capitals for emphasis, no rows of emoji, no line breaks or lists.
- No unsupported claims: “best”, “#1”, “guaranteed”, clickbait.
- One language: the ad, the targeted channel and the destination must match.
- An honest destination: the channel, bot or page delivers what the text promises.
Formula: [Hook] + [Benefit] + [CTA]
Examples:
• Crypto: “Track prices and set alerts for the tokens you hold, right inside Telegram. Free to start.”
• SaaS: “Manage all your Telegram Ads campaigns from one dashboard. Bulk edits and automation rules included.”
• Education: “Learn Python from zero in 30 short lessons. The first lesson is free.”
Each one says what the product does in a plain sentence and fits the limit. The rules, with examples of what breaks them, are in the declined ads guide.
Step 5 — Set CPM and Budget
CPM is your bid per thousand impressions, in the account’s currency. The form will not accept a bid below the minimum for your targeting and creative; on TON the platform minimum is 0.1, and an image or video raises it.
What a thousand impressions actually cost on our accounts, in campaigns targeted at a single country:
| Euro accounts | CPM | CTR |
|---|---|---|
| Uzbekistan | €0.20 | 0.90% |
| India | €0.25 | 1.12% |
| UAE | €1.42 | 1.36% |
| Brazil | €2.22 | 1.64% |
| Russia | €2.68 | 0.65% |
| Turkey | €2.92 | 0.87% |
| TON accounts | CPM, TON | CTR |
|---|---|---|
| Britain | 0.27 | 3.03% |
| Germany | 0.27 | 2.86% |
| USA | 0.39 | 1.97% |
| India | 0.42 | 1.77% |
| Saudi Arabia | 1.21 | 1.26% |
| UAE | 3.79 | 2.65% |
Euro figures are a snapshot of 3 October 2026; TON figures cover 22 August–3 October 2026 and are in TON, not euros. We do not publish a starting CPM by niche: the country moves the price far more than the niche does. Every country we have measured is in the CPM by country guide.
Budget. The form has a Budget (what the campaign may spend in total), an optional Daily Budget (0 means no daily limit) and Views per User. As a working estimate — our judgement, not a measurement — let each text collect about 10,000 impressions before you judge it. At the 0.85% average CTR on our Euro accounts that is roughly 85 clicks, and it costs ten times your CPM: about €27 at Russia’s €2.68.
Step 6 — Submit and Monitor
Review usually takes under an hour on every account type. Across 13,199 campaigns we measured in September 2026, over 98% had a decision within three hours on Stars, TON and Euro alike; submitting in Moscow business hours made no difference. How we measured it.
If declined: read the ad against the rules in Step 4, fix everything in one pass, check the destination, and submit again. In Adsly Pro Panel, Recreate re-submits a declined ad every hour until it is approved, and AI Recreate writes a new text for each attempt. On a Euro account opened through Adsly we can take a borderline decline to a human reviewer.
What to Do After Your First Campaign
1. Wait for volume. A few hundred impressions prove nothing; about 10,000 per text is a workable minimum (our estimate).
2. Compare CTR with a real baseline. The averages on our accounts are 0.85% on Euro, 2.18% on TON and 3.08% on Stars, and the country matters: 0.65% in Russia against 1.64% in Brazil on Euro accounts. A campaign far below the average for its account type and country needs a new text or a different audience.
3. Add 2–3 more text variations and run them against the same targeting.
4. Set automation rules, for example: pause when CTR over the last 24 hours is below your floor and the campaign already has enough views; notify when the remaining budget runs low. How rules work.
5. Expand targeting: add channels similar to your best performers, or split countries into separate campaigns to see what each one costs.
Common First-Campaign Mistakes
1. Hundreds of loosely related channels → start with a short list you have read yourself.
2. A bid at the minimum in a competitive country (little or no delivery) → raise the CPM in small steps until impressions come.
3. Ad text too long or decorated → 160 characters, no capitals for emphasis, no rows of emoji, no line breaks.
4. Ad in one language, channel in another → write in the language of the channels you target.
5. Judging after a few hundred impressions → wait for about 10,000 per text.
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Frequently Asked Questions
How long does it take to create a campaign?
About ten minutes for a single campaign once the account is funded: the form is one page (our estimate, not a measurement). In Adsly Pro Panel, Quick Create takes a channel, bot or website, finds target channels, writes the ad texts with AI and launches up to 100 campaigns from one screen.
What’s the minimum budget?
Through Adsly: €500 of ad budget on a Euro account, €1,000 for crypto and stocks, €5,000 for gambling, nutra, adult/dating and binary options. On self-serve TON you fund the account yourself, and Telegram’s minimum CPM is 0.1. A Stars account has no deposit at all: you spend Stars your channel or bot has already earned.
How long until my ad goes live?
Usually under an hour, on Stars, TON and Euro alike: over 98% of 13,199 campaigns we measured had a decision within three hours. Occasionally a whole batch waits up to about two days.
What if my ad gets declined?
Find the rule it broke — length, capitals, emoji, line breaks, an unsupported claim, a second link, a shortener, a language mismatch or a destination that does not match the text — fix all of it in one pass and submit again. In Adsly Pro Panel, Recreate re-submits a declined ad every hour, and AI Recreate writes a new text for each attempt.
How do I know if my campaign is working?
Compare its CTR with a measured baseline, not a rule of thumb: on our accounts the average is 0.85% on Euro, 2.18% on TON and 3.08% on Stars, and on Euro accounts it runs from 0.65% in Russia to 1.64% in Brazil. Clicks are not sales, though. Telegram’s “actions” are channel joins and bot starts; to see deposits or purchases, send postbacks from your tracker.
Should I use ADSLY or the native manager?
The native interface at ads.telegram.org is enough for a handful of campaigns, and you keep access to it on every account we open. Adsly Pro Panel adds bulk creation and editing, AI text generation, Recreate for declined ads, automation rules, hourly analytics and team access. Free is $0, Pro $129 per month, Agency $229 per month, with a 3-day Pro trial at sign-up.
