Telegram Ads in the UK — FCA Compliance, Measured CPMs and What Actually Runs (2026)

TL;DR

The UK is open for Telegram Ads: United Kingdom is one of the 229 country options in the ad form, on Euro and TON accounts alike. Our UK-targeted campaigns so far ran on TON accounts: 0.27 TON per thousand impressions at 3.03% CTR and 0.009 TON per click, across 2.6M impressions on 8 accounts (22 August–3 October 2026). That is priced in TON, not euros, and it sits among the cheapest rows of our TON table. We have no Euro-account measurement for the UK yet.

What sets the UK apart is not the price but the rules, and two regulators that are often confused:

• The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) — financial promotions. Any ad that invites people to invest is a financial promotion, whether it runs on Telegram, YouTube or a billboard. Crypto has been inside that regime since 8 October 2023; binary options have been banned for retail clients since 2 April 2019. The FCA’s social-media guidance of 26 March 2024 names Telegram and Discord chatrooms.
• The Gambling Commission — gambling. Advertising gambling that is not licensed for Great Britain is a criminal offence under the Gambling Act 2005. The FCA has nothing to do with it.

In practice there are three paths:

1. Authorised firm, or a promotion approved by one: full UK delivery, with the disclosures your compliance team signs off.
2. Not authorised, regulated product (crypto, forex, CFDs, investments): you may not promote to the UK. Keep the UK out of the campaign, and be able to show that you did.
3. Non-regulated niche (SaaS, B2B tech, e-commerce, consumer goods): target the UK normally. The advertising rules that apply are the ASA’s, not the FCA’s.

The rest of this guide walks each path with the account setup. It is not legal advice; complying with UK law is the advertiser’s responsibility.

What we actually know about the UK Telegram audience in 2026

Numbers we can stand behind:

Metric	Value	Source
Internet users in the UK	68.1 million at the end of 2025	DataReportal, Digital 2026: The United Kingdom
Telegram users in the UK	no reliable public figure	Telegram publishes no country numbers; the figures that circulate come from statistics aggregators we could not trace to a primary source
Measured price, UK only, TON accounts	0.27 TON CPM, 3.03% CTR, 0.009 TON per click	Adsly TON accounts, 2.6M impressions, 8 accounts, 22 Aug–3 Oct 2026
Measured price, UK only, Euro accounts	not measured yet	—
Ad language	English	Telegram’s ad guidelines: the ad, the channel and the destination should share a language
Minimum CPM on a TON account	0.1 TON	ads.telegram.org

Numbers we will not give you:

• “Average ROAS in the UK” — it depends on the offer far more than on the country, and any single number would mislead.
• “Best time to run ads” — we have no hour-of-day data. Use the hourly analytics of your own campaigns to find your hours.

The FCA regime in 30 seconds

Section 21 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 says a person must not, in the course of business, communicate an invitation or inducement to engage in investment activity unless they are an authorised person or the content is approved by one (legislation.gov.uk). Breaching it is a criminal offence, punishable by up to two years in prison, an unlimited fine, or both (FCA).

Three facts to anchor:

• It does not depend on the platform. The FCA’s finalised guidance on social media (FG24/1, 26 March 2024) covers private and invitation-only channels and names chatrooms such as Discord and Telegram (Reed Smith summary).
• It reaches across borders. Under section 21(3), a communication that originates outside the UK is caught if it is capable of having an effect in the UK. For crypto the FCA says it plainly: the regime applies to all firms marketing cryptoassets to UK consumers, wherever the firm is based (FCA).
• It is enforced. In the week of 20 April 2026 the FCA led seventeen regulators in an action against illegal “finfluencers”: 120 account takedown requests to social-media platforms and 34 warning alerts. Inside the targeted accounts it counted 1,267 illegal financial adverts that had reached at least 2.3 million UK accounts — a count the FCA says was specific to Meta platforms (FCA, 24 April 2026).

If your offer is a regulated investment — crypto, forex, CFDs, securities — one of these has to be true before a UK user sees your ad:

1. You are FCA-authorised for the activity.
2. The promotion is approved by an authorised firm. Since 7 February 2024 that firm needs the FCA’s permission to approve promotions for others (FCA, PS23/13).
3. Crypto only: you are a cryptoasset business registered with the FCA under the Money Laundering Regulations.
4. An exemption in the Financial Promotion Order applies. Exemptions are narrow and rarely fit a paid ad shown to the general public.

If none is true, you cannot lawfully show that ad to UK users.

Three product rules decide what the ad may offer in the first place:

• Binary options cannot be sold, marketed or distributed to retail consumers at all, since 2 April 2019 (FCA).
• CFDs for retail clients carry leverage limits between 30:1 and 2:1 and a standardised risk warning stating the percentage of the firm’s retail accounts that lose money, since 1 August 2019 (FCA).
• Crypto promotions need a prescribed risk warning and “positive frictions” such as a 24-hour cooling-off period (FCA).

Path 1 — Authorised firm running compliant Telegram Ads

This is the cleanest path. Account setup:

• Account type. A Euro account: it links to your website — external links are a Euro-only feature — as well as to a Telegram channel, bot or Mini App.
• Targeting. Country: United Kingdom. Language: English. Then topics, or the channels your customers already follow.
• Bid. On a TON account start from our measured UK level, 0.27 TON per thousand impressions, and raise it only if delivery stalls. For a Euro account we have no UK measurement to offer; start low and let delivery tell you.
• Frequency. Keep the “views per user” cap low. A finance brand that follows people around reads as spam.

The FCA expects each promotion to be compliant on its own, so the risk warning belongs in the ad, not only on the landing page. Telegram gives you 160 characters and no line breaks. For crypto the FCA prescribes the wording, with a short form for media that limit characters (COBS 4.12A.11R):

{Brand}: buy Bitcoin and Ethereum from £100. Don’t invest unless you’re prepared to lose all the money you invest.

The short form is for the ad; the full warning still belongs on the page the ad leads to. How you describe your regulatory status in the ad is a decision for your compliance team or approver. Around the ad, make these easy to check:

• The firm’s name and reference number on the landing page, so a reader can look it up on the FCA Register.
• For CFDs, the standardised warning with your own loss percentage.
• For crypto, the cooling-off step in onboarding.
• A complaints procedure linked from the landing page.

Path 2 — Not authorised: keep the UK out of the campaign

If you are not FCA-authorised and no authorised firm approves your promotion, the lawful course is not to promote to the UK at all — and to be able to show that you did not. Many guides call this “reverse solicitation” and present it as a loophole. It is not one: an ad campaign cannot create an unsolicited approach, because a paid ad is solicitation.

What the law offers instead is article 12 of the Financial Promotion Order: the restriction does not apply to a communication directed only at persons outside the UK (legislation.gov.uk). The article lists what counts towards that, including:

• the communication says it is directed only at persons outside the UK and must not be acted on by persons in the UK;
• it is not referred to in, or directly accessible from, another communication aimed at the UK;
• there are proper systems and procedures to stop UK recipients from engaging in the investment activity.

So a “not for UK residents” line is one item on the list, and the systems are what carry the weight. In practice:

1. In the ad account the United Kingdom is not in the country list. Target users by country, not by channel: an English-language channel has UK readers, and channel targeting shows the ad to all of them.
2. On the site UK visitors cannot open an account. Block by IP and by declared residence at onboarding, and keep the logs.
3. In the copy say who the service is for.

Whether you may then serve a UK resident who finds you entirely unprompted is a separate legal question, and one for a UK financial-services lawyer rather than an ads guide.

Path 3 — Non-regulated niche, full UK targeting

If the offer is SaaS, B2B tech, e-commerce, consumer goods or a consumer service with no investment angle, the FCA regime does not apply. What does apply is the CAP Code, “the rule book for non-broadcast advertisements, sales promotions and direct marketing communications”, which must be followed by all advertisers, agencies and media (ASA). Its section on misleading advertising is the one that matters most to an ad text.

Account setup is the same as Path 1 without the financial disclosures. For price, use the measured UK figure below rather than a niche guess: we do not publish a UK figure for SaaS or for any other single niche. Measure cost per click and trial conversion in your own funnel.

What a thousand impressions costs in the UK — measured

Our UK-targeted campaigns so far ran on TON accounts, so the measurement is in TON:

Metric	UK, TON accounts (22 Aug–3 Oct 2026)
CPM	0.27 TON
CTR	3.03%
Cost per click	0.009 TON
Impressions	2.6M
Accounts	8

We do not publish a per-niche split for the UK: the base is too thin to separate SaaS from fintech or crypto honestly, and we have no Euro-account measurement for the UK yet. For scale, the same TON table shows Germany and the Netherlands at 0.27 TON and the USA at 0.39 TON; the full list is in the CPM by country guide.

Two niches this measurement says nothing about:

• Gambling. In Great Britain gambling is licensed by the Gambling Commission, and section 330 of the Gambling Act 2005 makes it an offence to advertise unlawful gambling (legislation.gov.uk). The Commission’s own advice is to promote only operators that hold its licence (Gambling Commission). Telegram’s ad guidelines restrict real-money gambling as well. Our launch formats for gambling are described in the betting and iGaming guide; they do not change UK law, and meeting it is the advertiser’s responsibility.
• Adult and dating. A Euro account for this niche starts from a €5,000 ad budget and opens in 4 business days. Under the Online Safety Act, platforms that publish pornographic content must run robust age checks that meet Ofcom’s guidance (gov.uk); that duty sits with whoever runs the destination.

Adsly setup for UK — exact steps

1. Open the account. A Euro account opens in 2 business days. Minimum ad budget €500, or €1,000 for crypto and for stocks and investing. Payment in any cryptocurrency, no KYC. Our UK measurement comes from TON accounts, which link to Telegram destinations only; a Euro World account takes those destinations too and adds website links. Price your Euro account →
2. Path 1 (authorised). Country United Kingdom, language English. The copy that goes live is the copy your compliance team or approver signed off, word for word.
3. Path 2 (not authorised). The UK stays out of the country list, targeting is by user country rather than by channel, and the landing page blocks UK onboarding.
4. Path 3 (non-regulated). A standard United Kingdom campaign. In Adsly Pro Panel you can launch several creative variants at once, edit campaigns in bulk and generate ad texts with AI, instead of building each ad by hand in the native interface.
5. Access and moderation. Every account comes with access to the account itself on ads.telegram.org and to Pro Panel on app.adsly.pro. Review is quick: over 98% of the 13,199 campaigns we measured in September 2026 had a decision within three hours.

On bids: Telegram sets the minimum CPM on TON accounts at 0.1 TON. We publish no UK “bid floor” beyond that; start near the measured level and adjust by delivery.

FAQ

Is Telegram Ads legal for crypto in the UK in 2026?

Yes, through one of four routes: the promotion is communicated by an FCA-authorised firm, approved by an authorised firm, communicated by a cryptoasset business registered with the FCA under the Money Laundering Regulations, or covered by an exemption in the Financial Promotion Order. Outside those four it is a criminal offence.

Does the FCA actually monitor Telegram?

Its 2024 social-media guidance covers Telegram by name. The published enforcement numbers are not Telegram-specific: the 1,267 illegal adverts counted in the April 2026 week of action were on Meta platforms. Do not read that as Telegram being out of scope.

What if my offer originates outside the UK?

That does not help. A communication from outside the UK is caught if it is capable of having an effect in the UK, and the FCA applies the crypto regime to overseas firms explicitly. What takes you out of scope is directing the promotion only at people outside the UK, with systems that actually keep UK users out and not just a disclaimer.

Can I run Telegram Ads without targeting the UK?

Yes. Leave the United Kingdom out of the country list and target users by country. That is the whole of Path 2.

What does an FCA approver charge?

There is no public price list, and we do not quote a range we cannot source. Fees are set case by case by the approving firm; ask for quotes.

Is Telegram Ads in the UK cheaper than Google or Meta?

We cannot answer that honestly with one number. Our UK figure is 0.27 TON per thousand impressions on TON accounts, and we have no sourced UK price for Google or Meta to set beside it — nor would a CPM in TON compare directly with one in pounds. Compare on cost per qualified lead in your own funnel.

Does Adsly approve financial promotions for the FCA regime?

No. We are not an FCA-authorised firm and cannot approve a financial promotion. We open the ad account and provide the tools; authorisation or approval is something you bring.

Can I target London specifically?

What this guide promises is country targeting: United Kingdom is an option in the form. The form also has a location field for some countries (targeting guide), but we have not verified which UK locations it offers, so we make no promise about London. Open the form in your account and search before you plan a London-only campaign.

What about Northern Ireland?

The United Kingdom option covers England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and the FCA’s rules apply across all four. Gambling is the exception: the Gambling Commission’s jurisdiction is Great Britain, while in Northern Ireland gambling is a devolved matter under the Betting, Gaming, Lotteries and Amusements (NI) Order 1985 (Gambling Commission). Advertising across the whole UK, Northern Ireland included, is regulated by the ASA.

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In the UK the technical setup is the easy half. The compliance half decides whether a campaign runs for a year or is taken down. If you are unsure which path your offer is on, ask us at @adsly_pro before you fund the account.