Telegram Business, bots and payment links

Two different objects

On Telegram, two objects can hold a conversation, and they are often confused.

The business account is an ordinary user account to which Telegram adds features. It carries the name, the photo and the identity of the persona. It is the one the fan writes to.

The bot is a program. It has its own identifier, it is created by a developer, and it can either chat in its own name or be connected to a business account to answer in its place.

The distinction matters because it determines what the fan sees. In the first case, he is talking to an account that looks like a person. In the second, he is visibly talking to a service.

What Telegram publishes about business accounts

The official Telegram Business announcement, published on March 31, 2024, lists the features: opening hours and location, a custom start page with text and stickers, pre-recorded quick replies with formatting, links, media and files, greeting messages for new contacts, away messages outside hours or during holidays, colored chat labels, chat links with performance tracking, and bot connection.

On that last point, the announcement states that businesses can “connect Telegram bots that will process and answer messages on their behalf”, and that it is possible to configure “which chats the bot can access”, for example “excluding all chats with your contacts, or only responding to new chats”. Telegram concludes that this feature “opens a new era for Telegram Bots”.

Four of these features have a direct use in our trade.

The greeting message is the first message received by someone writing to you for the first time. It is the most profitable object in the channel, because it applies to one hundred percent of arrivals. Write it with the care you would give a sales page.

The away message makes silences consistent with the persona. It is the clean answer to the local time problem identified in module 4.

Quick replies are the manual version of what will become, in module 5, a script library.

The chat link is the destination of the module 4 funnel, and it carries performance tracking, which finally gives a number to step 3 of the funnel.

What Telegram publishes about bots

The milestones are dated and public in the Bot API changelog.

Version 7.2, published on March 31, 2024, introduces integration with business accounts, including the notion of a business connection that lets a bot act on behalf of an account.

Version 7.6, published on July 1, 2024, adds sending paid media, that is, a locked media item that unlocks against a payment inside the conversation. It is the technical equivalent of the PPV described in module 5.

Version 8.0, published on November 17, 2024, adds paid subscriptions in bots, and gifts.

These three dates tell a simple story: between March and November 2024, Telegram put in place everything needed to sell content in a private conversation, without leaving the app.

Setting up a clean entry

Here is the minimal chain, in order.

The link in the bio leads to the chat. It promises nothing explicit, in line with what module 4 recalled about the rules of the acquisition platforms.

The greeting message fires automatically. It must do one thing only: get a reply. An open question, short, in the persona’s voice. No price, no catalog, no link.

The next two or three messages qualify: where the person comes from, what they are looking for, which language they write in. That information will become, in module 5, the memory of the conversation.

The first tier comes next, and only next. The lesson Anatomy of a PPV script details its placement.

The away message covers the persona’s sleeping hours. It does not apologize and it does not promise a precise return time.

This chain works by hand for a few dozen conversations a day. Beyond that, it no longer holds, and that is exactly the subject of module 5.

What is not public

Three points on which this course will assert nothing, because Telegram does not publish them.

The precise rate limits applicable to an account or a bot in commercial use are not exhaustively published.

The criteria for restricting an account are not published. As on the acquisition platforms, observed practice is not a rule.

The conditions applicable to adult content vary by object type, country and app store. Refer to the terms published by Telegram rather than to a summary, including ours.

The next lesson covers the part that is, by contrast, precisely documented: the in-app currency, Stars, and what it changes compared with a classic content platform.