Telegram adds the option to advertise for a fee on channels and opens its advertising platform to individuals and organizations. Pavel Dorov, the founder of Telegram, announced that its platform would add premium features such as advertisements and paid sticker packs to continue its financial presence.
However, the advertisements are not the same as users are used to from Facebook or Google. The announcement comes as the app nears its eighth birthday and reaches 500 million active users.
Pavel Dorov said, “a project of our size needs at least a few hundred million dollars per year to keep going. All the currently free-to-use parts of the platform will remain free.”
According to Telegram, the company won’t’ compromise its privacy position as no user data will be mined or analyzed to present ads.
The Telegram only allows advertising based on channel types and languages and does not allow direct targeting of users as it does not plan to collect user information about users. Telegram will be adding a few new paid features for business teams.
In addition, sponsored content will be displayed based on the main topic of the public channels such that all the users see the same advertisements. According to Telegram, “No user information is collected or analyzed for advertising, and every user on a particular Telegram channel sees the same sponsored message.”
Telegram will not allow advertisements to be sent to external links. The company ensures that the third-party software cannot track users of the platform.
According to the founder of the Telegram, communication between people should be free of advertising of any sort. In addition to that, Pavel Dorov, the founder of Telegram, promised that Telegram’s’ impending ad-serving systems would be user-friendly and respect Telegram users’ privacy.
Telegram has also streamed a complete guide for an advertiser starting from a platform detailing the ways the users can create an advertisement from scratch.