Paid placements in Telegram: what they cost and how not to waste your budget
Translated from Russian. Prices are in Kazakhstani tenge (₸).
In short
Paid placements (known in Russian-speaking markets as “posevy”, or “seeding”) are paid posts about your channel in other channels. Find platforms by audience overlap: through the “Similar channels” button in Telegram itself and the TGStat catalog. Prices in Kazakhstan vary many times over: channels of the same size can ask 50,000 or 500,000 tenge, and the more expensive one often has worse engagement. Count not clicks and impressions but the final cost per subscriber. Telegram Ads gives a steady, inexpensive inflow; placements give sharp jumps in growth.
What paid placements are and when you need them
A placement is an ad post about your channel in someone else's channel. You pay the channel owner, they tell their audience about you, and some readers subscribe.
You need placements whenever a channel needs to grow. Telegram has no algorithmic feed: if you don't promote, nobody sees your content. At the launch of bailanys it was placements, not Telegram Ads, that brought us our first 3,000 subscribers.
How to choose channels
There are great automation tools for this. The main principle is to go where the audience overlaps with yours.
- The “Similar channels” button in Telegram. Telegram picks similar channels automatically, based on audience similarity. That's exactly what you need.
- TGStat. At the very start, just find channels on similar topics to yours. In the TGStat catalog you can filter channels by topic and region, including Kazakhstan, and view their statistics.
Easy. Before buying, always look at engagement (ER): a channel with lots of subscribers but almost no views or reactions will bring you nothing. In TGStat statistics, very low ER and sudden jumps in subscribers for no visible reason should raise a red flag.
How much placements cost in Kazakhstan
Like all prices in Kazakhstan — dramatically different. A channel with excellent ER might ask 50,000 tenge. And a channel with the same number of subscribers and an ER close to zero, 500,000 tenge.
So you can't judge the price by the number of subscribers. Judge it by how many real people will actually see your post.
How to calculate the return
We're not interested in CPC and CPM for placements. Clicks and impressions say nothing about how many people will stay in the channel. We look at two metrics:
- CPF (cost per follower) — the final cost of a subscriber from a specific placement. What you paid divided by how many subscribed.
- CPU — the cost of a subscriber across the whole channel, including all direct and indirect project costs: promotion, editorial, production.
Why does the second metric matter? Performance can work brilliantly and bring in cheap subscribers. But if the editorial team is overfed at the same time, in absolute money the overspending will be absolute. A cheap subscriber from a placement won't save a project that's too expensive overall.
Placements or Telegram Ads
| Telegram Ads | Paid placements | |
|---|---|---|
| How the channel grows | Steady, inexpensive audience inflow | Sporadically, in jumps |
| What to expect | Stability; there won't be a blockbuster | Sharp growth after successful placements |
| When you need it | To keep a steady flow of subscribers | To grow fast, especially at the start |
The tools work best together. But track CPF from the first month: at bailanys we planned a Telegram Ads subscriber at 3,000 tenge, got about 5,000 tenge, and quickly shifted the budget to placements.
No success without failures
We've had unsuccessful placements, and how. But they're all tests: there's no success without failures.
The biggest flop was when we decided to experiment and placed a post in the channel of a Kazakh PR expert. Why — I don't know. We got zero subscribers. The channel's audience simply didn't overlap with ours: they weren't interested in what's happening in telecom. Yet another confirmation of the main rule: choose platforms by audience overlap, not by how famous the author is.
Checklist before buying a placement
- The channel's audience overlaps with yours: it appears in “Similar channels” or is close in topic on TGStat.
- The channel works in your region and in your audience's language.
- ER is normal, and views match the number of subscribers.
- There are no sharp, unexplained jumps in its subscriber history.
- The price is reasonable for the reach, not for the number of subscribers.
- You know in advance what CPF is acceptable for you.
- The placement post explains why to subscribe to you in particular.
- After the placement you'll calculate CPF and compare it with other platforms.
Key points
- Find platforms by audience overlap: “Similar channels” in Telegram and TGStat.
- Prices in Kazakhstan differ many times over, and an expensive channel doesn't mean a good one.
- Count CPF per placement and CPU across the project, not clicks and impressions.
- Telegram Ads is for a steady inflow, placements are for growth spurts.
- Failed placements are a normal part of testing.
Need help promoting a Telegram channel? Message me on Telegram at @maximfetisov.
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Sources
- Telegram: Similar Channels, Reposting Stories and more (November 2023)
- TGStat Kazakhstan: Telegram channel catalog and statistics
