Let’s try to put ourselves in the shoes of the owner of a popular Telegram channel. Imagine that an advertiser comes to you with a request to place an ad. As direct and non-native as possible, which can greatly stand out from the general content on the channel. Obviously, the audience, which is suddenly offered some product or service, distracting from the content that interests them, will perceive such a publication with a lot of negativity. Sometimes the negativity can be quite strong, and some of.
The followers may even unsubscribe.
Yes, you as a channel owner will earn N amount of money, but you can lose a lot of subscribers or even the trust of the audience if the integration is unsuccessful. If you are ready to take this step, then you need appropriate compensation. That is why the prices for placing such advertising are in most cases significantly higher. I think this is understandable and justified.
Native advertising, in turn, is harmoniously woven into the overall content, interesting, useful and, most importantly, relevant to the audience. If it is competently created and presented, of course. The owner of the Telegram channel can even benefit from the publication – collect additional assets, start a discussion and get new subscribers (in the ideal case). Accordingly, he will willingly agree to the publication for a lower cost. Sometimes the cost of such placement can be 2-3 times less. And sometimes even more.
How to choose a channel for native promotion and what to pay attention to
Most Telegram advertising exchanges provide fairly comprehensive statistics on Telegram channels.
Usually there is an option to filter the available channels:
- by category;
- by region;
- by price;
- by coverage.
You can also search by name. If the channel is in the catalog, its statistics and additional information will be available: category, number of views, CPM (i.e. cost per 1000 views), etc.
Among the large number of indicators, first of all pay attention to the growth of new audience (the number of subscriptions per week should be greater than the number of unsubscribes), the citation index (if the channel has mentions and reposts, it is alive and developing) and the average reach of the advertising publication (to understand how many people will see your advertisement).
And here is another important point: changing dynamics. Channel statistics are updated daily, and coverage can change significantly. They are affected by wartime factors: air raid sirens, blackouts, interruptions in the work of mobile operators (remember the recent global failure of Kyivstar). Therefore, when choosing, it is important not to rush, but to track the dynamics to see a more objective picture. Yes, it takes time to make an informed decision. But only in this case can you expect high results from native promotion. Otherwise, there is a risk of making a mistake.
Native Advertising Isn’t For Everyone
Despite all of the above, one important thing should be taken into account: native advertising in Telegram channels is the best solution for already known and fairly large brands. That is, those that potential customers already know about. After all, the goal of such advertising is not to advertise your brand, but to additionally store information about it in the consumer’s mind and push them to action as carefully as possible.
Accordingly, for new and small brands, native advertising may not be very effective. Yes, it will provide the target audience with certain information. But imagine that along with information about large retail chains, we talk about a small local store. Most likely, information about it will not be stored in memory, and users will pay more attention to large competitors. Therefore, native advertising is, to some extent, a niche format that will not be effective in 100% of cases.
Author: Ivan Lipey, co-owner of the Ukrainian Telegram channel exchangeAdsell.
