Advertising on Telegram Mini Apps: Uncover Its Secrets Before Your Competition Does

A soup of NSFW, terrorist messaging, and drug recipes — that’s how an average US citizen views Telegram. While partly true on one side, on the other, the platform is a fresh, tech-advanced, and very promising place to advertise literally everything to everyone.

That’s exactly what we’re going to teach you to do today. And no, this isn’t a manuscript on old-fashioned sponsored messages and ad posts. Those don’t require a three-digit IQ to grasp. Instead, we’ll focus on Telegram’s other secret weapon – the Mini Apps, learn how they work, and why they are the next hot thing in the realm of cheap & highly effective advertising.

The best part? You can easily set up Mini App ads with the Epom ad server. Keep reading and discover how.

What Are Ads in Telegram Mini Apps?

Okay, let’s do this bit by bit.

Mini Apps are flexible interfaces that run on JavaScript and can be launched right inside Telegram.

Basically, these are apps within apps, hence the name. They function similarly to bots, so yeah, these support seamless authorization, Google Pay/Apple Pay payments, home screen shortcuts, full-screen mode, and so much more.

The potential for features is limitless, from media sharing and simplified websites to games and immersive AR/VR experiences.

And, most importantly, you can launch DOOM in a mini app.

Memes aside, you probably want to hear about the advertising part. In Mini Apps, ads are integrated directly into the app interface. This makes using them as natives the best strategy, yet again, do what you want. Speaking of formats…

What Ad Formats Are Available?

Now, what about the ad formats? Which of them are available?

Short answer: whichever ads are supported in your ad server can be implemented into Mini Apps.

Long answer: from a tech standpoint, there is nothing preventing you from putting a VMAP video sequence or an in-app banner into Mini Apps. But really, like in regular direct/programmatic advertising, it all depends on the publisher of a mini app.

If their app and your ad server support an ad format, then go for it. If not, you can try making your own mini app and put ads there (later on that). If your ad server does not support the desired ad format, well, try ours.

In theory, you can use whatever ad format you like with Epom ad server, including:

• Desktop
• Fixed Size
• HTML5
• IAB
• In-App
• Mobile
• Native
• Outstream
• Pop
• Rich Media
• Responsive
• VAST
• Video

When do you use which? We’ve already explained this in our ad placement guide. And now, let’s dig into how you should do it.

How Do You Advertise with Telegram Mini Apps?

Speaking of implementation, the bark is worse than the bite. We mean that it’s just as effortless as with any other form of digital advertising. Before we break down this step by step, there are a couple of things worth noting:

• Everything happens with the help of JavaScript.
• You can use both your app (which is easy enough to write) and someone else’s (which already has functionality and user base) to place ads.
• If you advertise on your own Mini App, you become both an advertiser and publisher. You have full control and customization.
• If you advertise on a third-party Mini App, you negotiate the terms and conditions (CPC, CPM, CPA, ad formats) for ad placements with the publisher. Ad networks and ad agencies with Mini Apps already exist; in this case the terms might be negotiated beforehand.

Don’t worry; we’ll take all of these into account with the steps below.

Step # 1. Obtain an Ad Tag

Get the ad tag from your ad server. This tag should include campaign settings, publisher ID, widget ID, and additional targeting parameters.

We won’t complicate things even further by dissecting each element of an ad tag, but here’s what it looks like in our ad server. Just click on the Invocation Codes in any ad placement, and you’ll get an ad tag for it.

Step 2: Access the Mini App’s Source Code

This one’s simple. If you own the Mini App, just open your codebase. If not, ask the app owner to insert your ad tag. This is about time to reach an agreement on ad placement and revenue split.

Step 3: Embed the Ad Tag

Time to insert the JS code into the appropriate section of the Mini App’s HTML or frontend file. Make sure that the ad container element matches the placement and size of the ad format. In practice, this should look like this:

<div id="ad-container"></div>
<script async src="https://example-ad-server.com/ad-tag.js"></script>

Step 4: Test and Calibrate

Open the Mini App in Telegram and verify that the ad appears correctly. Check if it’s responsive and doesn’t mess up with the UX. Make sure you follow Telegram’s guidelines (as loose as they are) and confirm that the impressions are recorded correctly.

As you can see, implementing ads in Telegram Mini Apps isn’t that hard to do. It doesn’t require third-party APIs or any change to the ad itself; just take an ad tag, put it in source code, verify it works, and voila.

Why Should You Advertise on Telegram Mini Apps?

Now that you know how to advertise on Mini Apps, there should only be one question itching the scalp of your brain: “What’s the point?”

And that’s a completely justifiable concern. Let us persuade you with three simple arguments:

Because It’s Big

With 950 million monthly active users and 10 million premium subscribers, Telegram has proven to be so much more than a fan club for Alcaida and pirated OnlyFans content (although it doesn’t contradict the latter).

For South Americans and Central Europeans, it’s the source of text analytics and memes, while for us Ukrainians, it’s the well of vital war info and even more memes. Lyrics aside, Telegram only keeps growing. In a matter of mere months, we’ve seen the user count grow from 900 to 950 million.

Don’t miss the hype train!

Because It’s Easy

Implementing ads in Telegram Mini Apps is literally free, from a tech point at least. As you’ve seen from a previous heading, there’s no need to be a Javascript specialist to understand how advertising in Mini Apps works and how to do it yourself.

What’s better, you don’t even need to make extra arrangements with your ad server provider. Just copy the ad tag and paste it into the code, it’s that easy.

Because It’s Effective

An average user session on Telegram lasts for 1 minute and 21 seconds. While that doesn’t seem much in comparison to TikTok’s 5 minutes and 56 seconds, the user on TG is simply less bloated with information, contents, and, most importantly, competitor’s ads.

The Mini Apps are especially effective in this regard. Unlike sponsored messages, these appear both to premium and non-premium users. These are much more flexible and benefit from all the cool features that your ad server supports like bidding rules and auto-optimization.

How to Successfully Advertise on Telegram Mini Apps: 5 Small Tips

Dear reader, you’re almost ready to begin your journey of conquering the Telegram’s advertising landscape. But before you go, we’ll give you a few tips to make your departure easier:

Tip # 1. Don’t forget about Push Ads

Your best bet in 2025, push ads, is as useful as ever in our scenario. Small reminder: these are cheap, relevant in real time and driven by user consent. Short and engaging messages in promotions and reminders is a great tactic.

The more – the better. Actually, small banner creatives in Mini Apps are similar to standard push ads (128 * 128), so you won’t even have to change much.

Tip # 2. Embed Ads in the Right Area at the Right Time

Targeting by time requires some research to discover when your audience is most likely to engage, but it will pay itself in the future. Once you know that Oksanas from Poland click on e-commerce ads late in the evening while scrolling through Telegram, you can adjust your campaigns accordingly.

Timing is one thing; however, it needs to be backed up by ad placement in the high-interaction areas. Avoid placing ads at app entry points, instead, place them at key interaction moments, like after completing an in-app task.

Tip # 3. Track, Analyze, Optimize

Unfortunately, there is currently no meta for advertising in Telegram. You won’t get a winning recipe from the web, so your best bet is to improve what works and cut what doesn’t.

Start with A/B testing to find the optimal ad frequency. Too many ads drive users away, and too few limit the revenue. In mobile apps, this number amounts to 3-4 interactions per ad; this shouldn’t be far off from Telegram Mini Apps.

Tip # 4. Put UX First

Nah, we won’t lecture you about making the ads seamlessly integrated with the app design. Just prioritize using native ads and go from there. This ad format might cost a bit more than the others, but it suits the nature of Mini Apps the best.

Tip # 5. Prioritize Lightweight Ad Scripts

The last one is for the nerds that have access to the source code. Long story short, ads should load quickly to maintain smooth Mini App performance. Heavy scripts cause slowdowns and frustrations, lightweight - don’t.

Use lazy loading. It prevents the ad scripts from being loaded until the ad is visible. Naturally, this optimizes the load, improves speed, and makes the final user less infuriated by a lagging ad.

Here’s what it should look like:

<ins class="ad-container" data-key="c0595a7e8f14f0f0bc9d91171bd9d397"></ins>

<script>
  // Listen for scroll events to check if the ad container is visible
  window.addEventListener('scroll', function() {
      const adContainer = document.querySelector('.ad-container');

      // If the ad container is in the viewport, load the ad script
      if (isInViewport(adContainer)) {
          loadAdTag();
          // Remove the scroll event listener after loading the ad script
          window.removeEventListener('scroll', arguments.callee);
      }
  });

  // Helper function to check if an element is within the visible area of the screen
  function isInViewport(element) {
      const rect = element.getBoundingClientRect();
      return rect.top >= 0 && rect.bottom <= window.innerHeight;
  }

  // Dynamically load the ad script
  function loadAdTag() {
      const script = document.createElement('script');
      script.src = 'https://aj101.xyz/9c7d0f05.js';  // Replace with your ad script URL
      script.async = true;  // Load script asynchronously to prevent blocking
      document.head.appendChild(script);  // Add the script to the document's <head>
  }
</script>

So, Am I Ready to Advertise on Telegram Mini Apps?

Yes, you are! Most likely, you already know more than your fellow advertisers in the field, as this method is still relatively underground. So before everyone finally gets sick of X, switches to Telegram for news, and the Mini Apps get flooded with the competition – give them a shot!

Once again, you can do this with the Epom ad server with no effort. If you have any further questions, our support team will gladly help you.