Growing a Telegram channel: how to get subscribers without faking it

Before promoting: is the channel ready

Promotion — or growth, as it’s often called — brings people to the channel’s page. From there they decide in a few seconds whether to subscribe. So it’s worth checking the channel itself first.

• It’s clear what the channel is about and for whom. The name and description answer «what will I get here,» not just name the company.
• There’s a link you can share. A public channel has a username and a short link like t.me/name — you can place it on a website, in social media or in print materials. A private channel can only be joined by the owner’s invitation or an invite link.
• There are already a few posts. They let a new reader see what’s coming and how often.
• A pinned intro post. Briefly: who runs the channel, what it covers, how it’s useful.
• There’s a publishing plan. Without a regular rhythm, new subscribers lose interest fast. If you don’t have a plan yet, here’s how to schedule posts so they go out regularly.

How to create and set up a channel from scratch is a separate topic. This is about what to check before inviting people in.

Free ways to attract subscribers

The business’s own resources

The first readers are usually people who already know the company: customers, site visitors, newsletter subscribers. You can invite them wherever they already interact with you:

• a block or banner linking to the channel on the website;
• a mention in an email newsletter and in the email signature;
• posts on the company’s other social media;
• a QR code at an offline location, on packaging, on a receipt or in a brochure.

It’s worth making a separate invite link for each source. An invite link is a link that lets a person join the channel. The owner and admins can create extra links, limit them by expiry date or number of uses, and see who joined through each one. A link can be given a name visible to admins, and each link has a counter of people who joined through it. Telegram lets you turn any invite link into a QR code for print materials.

This way you can see where subscribers came from: the website, the newsletter, or the packaging. Telegram’s interface changes over time, so it’s worth checking the exact menu names in the app.

Invite links and inviting people you know

A channel owner can personally invite the first 200 subscribers; after that, as Telegram’s FAQ puts it, the channel grows on its own. If the channel is private, you can send the invite link to people you know. For private links you can turn on join requests, so an admin approves or declines each one.

Only invite people the channel might genuinely interest. Telegram explicitly asks that you not send channel links to strangers: if they report it as spam, the account’s ability to message other people can be restricted. Adding people to channels they didn’t want to join is also something Telegram treats as behavior people complain about.

Cross-promotion and mutual mentions

Cross-promotion is an agreement between two channels to recommend each other to their readers. It usually works when the topics are close but the audiences barely overlap: each channel has something new to offer the other’s readers.

Cross-promotion is different from «sub-for-sub» schemes, where authors subscribe to each other just to boost the number. Those subscribers didn’t come for the content and, as a rule, don’t read the channel.

If a mention is effectively an ad, keep the law in mind: online advertising must carry an «ad» label and identify the advertiser.

Expertise outside the channel

People find a channel through the people who run it. Talks at industry events, articles in trade media, interviews — wherever it fits, you can mention the channel as the place where you publish on the topic.

The same goes for comments in other people’s discussions: they draw attention if they add something to the conversation. A comment that exists only to link your own channel reads as spam and works against you.

Search inside Telegram

Any user can find a public channel through Telegram search and subscribe. A private channel doesn’t appear in search — it can only be joined by invitation.

Telegram’s channel FAQ doesn’t describe how search ranks results. So treat promises to «rank your channel at the top of Telegram search» with caution. A clear name and description help people recognize the channel in results, but they don’t guarantee a position.

Paid promotion methods

Paid methods speed up the first encounter with a channel, but it’s the content that keeps subscribers. If a subscriber arrived through an ad and didn’t find what was promised, they’ll unsubscribe. One more shared condition: online advertising, including ads for a channel placed in another channel, must be labeled under advertising law.

Method	How it works	When it fits	What to keep in mind
Telegram Ads	Sponsored messages in public channels through Telegram’s official platform	You need a clear, manageable launch inside Telegram	The ad leads to a channel or bot; platform requirements change
Placements in other channels	A sponsored post about your channel in someone else’s channel, arranged with the owner	There are channels with a close topic and a live audience	The placement needs vetting; it’s an ad and must be labeled
Other ad platforms	Ads that lead to the channel — for example, through Yandex Direct	You need reach beyond Telegram	The platform’s requirements for the channel and subscription tracking

Telegram Ads

Telegram Ads is Telegram’s official advertising platform. It lets you create sponsored messages in public channels, and such messages can lead to a channel or bot in Telegram. More on how Telegram Ads and seeding work in a separate article.

Seeding — ads in other channels

Seeding is placing a sponsored post about your channel in someone else’s channel. The result depends on the placement, so choose it by these signs:

• the topic is close to yours, and the channel’s readers are the people you want to reach;
• the audience is alive: posts get meaningful comments and reactions;
• the owner is willing to show channel statistics, not just a subscriber count;
• sponsored posts in the channel don’t run back-to-back nonstop.

You can find placements directly through channel owners or through specialized marketplaces. Either way, the post is an ad, and labeling requirements apply to it the same way.

Advertising a channel through other ad platforms

A Telegram channel can also be advertised outside Telegram. Yandex Direct has a «Telegram channel subscribers» scenario for this: Campaign Builder promotes the channel’s posts, and ads are only created for open channels. To track results, you need to add the Direct bot to the channel with admin rights, and the number of people who joined through the link appears in the channel’s list of invite links. Scenario names and requirements change, so check them against Direct’s help center. The general logic of the platform is covered in a separate breakdown of how Yandex Direct advertising works.

Why you shouldn’t fake subscriber growth

Fake accounts don’t read the channel and don’t buy anything. They distort the statistics: it becomes unclear how many real readers the channel has and which source actually worked.

Mass messaging and invitations are a separate risk zone. Inviting here means mass-adding or inviting people to a channel with no interest in it. These are exactly the kind of messages people most often flag as spam: ads, links, and invitations to groups and channels from strangers. After complaints, Telegram’s moderators can temporarily restrict an account, and repeated violations make the restrictions longer. Sending spam is also banned by Telegram’s terms of service.

There’s a practical problem too. If a lot of the subscribers are dead accounts, views per subscriber drop, and you can no longer honestly judge either the content or the ads. So it’s worth attracting subscribers through transparent methods — the same way we describe working with content and social media without faking engagement.

How to tell what worked

Channels above a certain size have built-in statistics in Telegram; the exact threshold is set by Telegram itself. It shows the subscriber count and its change, views, forwards and reactions per post, the share of subscribers with notifications on, view sources and new-subscriber sources. The set of metrics changes over time, so look at what’s available for your channel.

The second tool is invite links by source. What to compare:

• how many people came through each link;
• how many of them stayed after a few weeks, not just on the day they arrived;
• how post views change relative to the subscriber count — this shows whether the channel is actually being read.

Sometimes ER — the engagement rate, which relates audience reactions to the number of subscribers or views — is used for evaluation. There’s no universal norm for it: compare the channel against its own past, over time.

If you send people from the channel to your website, it’s convenient to track those visits in the site’s analytics. Here’s how to tag links so you can see the traffic source.

Where to start: first steps

This is a sequence of actions, not a forecast of results:

1. Check the channel against the checklist in the first section: description, link, a few posts, pinned intro, a plan.
2. Connect your own resources: website, newsletter, social media, offline — give each source its own invite link.
3. Arrange one or two mutual mentions with channels on a related topic.
4. Test one paid method on a small budget, and don’t forget labeling.
5. Compare sources: how many people came and how many stayed.
6. Keep what works, and decide what to invest in next.

Frequently asked questions

How many subscribers can I add to a channel manually?

A channel owner can personally invite the first 200 subscribers; after that the channel grows without this option. Telegram’s limits can change, so check them against the FAQ. And only invite people who might actually be interested — spam complaints lead to restrictions.

Do I need labeling if I’m buying an ad for my channel in another channel?

Yes, if the placement is an ad. Advertising law requires that online ads carry an «ad» label and identify the advertiser. It’s best to confirm the exact wording before the post goes live.

Can a channel be promoted with no budget?

Yes. Your own business resources, mutual mentions, expertise and search inside Telegram don’t require ad spend — see the «Free ways to attract subscribers» section for details. They do require time and regular posting.

What if subscribers come but unsubscribe quickly?

First check the source through your invite links: maybe people from one particular acquisition channel are the ones unsubscribing. Then check whether what the ad or announcement promised matches what the person sees in the channel. And look at regularity: long pauses also drive unsubscribes.

How long does it take to get the first subscribers?

There’s no honest way to forecast a timeline. It depends on the topic, the content, your resources and the methods you choose. So it’s more useful to plan the sequence of actions and compare sources than to wait for a specific date.

How does a closed channel differ from an open one for promotion?

An open, or public, channel has a username, can be found through Telegram search and subscribed to. A closed channel can only be joined by the owner’s invitation or an invite link. On top of that, some ad scenarios only work with open channels — for example, the scenario in Yandex Direct.

Promotion rests on the channel’s content and regularity, and that’s the real work.