Telegram is an underutilized but powerful marketing channel for fintech and financial apps.

With its scale, engaged user base and innovative features, including Telegram Ads, mini apps, and built-in payments, the platform offers strong opportunities for fintech companies to reach, engage, and convert audiences, according to a report by Magnetto, a Telegram ads agency.

Telegram is a cloud-based, cross-platform social media and instant messaging service. It allows users to send messages, share media and files, and hold private and group voice or video calls as well as public livestreams. Beyond messaging, Telegram also includes social networking features, allowing users to post stories, create public groups of up to 200,000 members, or broadcast updates to unlimited audiences via channels.

Telegram is the world’s third most popular messenger app in the world, with over 27 million downloads in January 2025. It claims more than 1 billion monthly users, nearly 450 million daily active users, and says it adds about 2.5 million new users each day. This scale gives brands a major opportunity to expand globally, build communities, and stay top of mind with highly engaged users.

A leading channel for crypto users

Unless mass media platform like Meta or Google Ads, Telegram excels at fostering tight-knit, highly engaged communities. This makes sectors including crypto, niche e-commerce brands, and gaming good fits, because their audiences are already plugged in and actually want to be sold to.

In fact, crypto represents the biggest community on Telegram. Nearly one-third of Telegram users have experience with cryptocurrencies, according to the Magnetto study. Within this group, 16% are seasoned crypto users.

Furthermore, the most-subscribed Telegram channels currently are crypto-related. The largest channel is Blum, a crypto ecosystem with more than 25 million subscribers. It’s followed by Major Community, with 19 million subscribers, and Tapswap Community, with 17 million subscribers.

Telegram channels work like a public broadcast tool, where brands share updates, exclusive offers, and content. Subscribers receive each message directly, a model which drive strong engagement. Telegram users generate over 1 trillion views in channels every month, and posts see an average open rate of 55-60%, which is higher than on most social platforms, the report says.

Telegram Ads for tech savvy audiences and communities

Another key functionality is Telegram Ads. Telegram Ads allow sponsored messages to appear in public and private channels and bots. It gives users access to three prime placements: inside public or private channels, within bots, and in Telegram Search results. Brands can target specific audiences with precision, even by placing ads in their competitors’ channels.

To qualify, a channel must have over 1,000 followers, and a bot must have more than 1,000 monthly active users.

Telegram Ads work best for online brands that appeal to a tech savvy audience, such as crypto projects, trading platforms, tech tools, and anything in the fintech space. Products with a strong community angle also tend to do well, especially if they speak to a clear niche.

Mini apps as a game-changer for fintech

Mini apps are another powerful tool for brands. Telegram’s mini apps let businesses build experiences inside Telegram without requiring downloads or app-switching. They’re especially attractive in sectors where speed, access, and cost-efficiency matter more than deep app functionality, like fintech.

Key benefits of mini apps include a massive reach of over 500 million monthly users already interacting with mini apps, frictionless onboarding with instant access and no app store approval, versatile use cases from e-commerce and booking systems to crypto wallets and portfolio wallets, and built-in payments using cryptocurrencies or traditional methods.

Mini apps are particularly taking off in emerging regions like Eastern Europe, India, and Latin America, where Telegram is already part of daily life. In crypto specifically, mini apps already enable users to manage wallets, trade tokens, stake assets, and track portfolios seamlessly.

Currently, crypto mini apps are the top-performing mini app category on Telegram, boasting 87 million monthly active users. Non-fungible token (NFT) mini apps rank fourth with 13 million monthly active users, while finance mini apps rank 13th with 3 million unique monthly active users.

Influencer marketing: underused but promising

Telegram’s influencer marketing, on the other hand, remains largely in its early stages, but its potential is significant, especially in high-value categories like finance, emerging tech, and wellness, the report says.

As more tools emerge to measure these campaigns, this space will get more structured. But for now, it is largely an overlooked levers in performance marketing, it says.

Telegram influencers often build authentic, trust-based connections with their audiences within focused, niche communities. Brands tapping into these relationships don’t have to start from zero, benefiting instead from the credibility influencers have already established. That kind of credibility matters: studies show that nearly 70% of people are more likely to act on recommendations from influencers, friends, or family than on messages from brands themselves, according to Magnetto.

Another major advantage of Telegram influencer marketing is access to the platform’s 15 million active Premium users, who don’t see Telegram Ads and are otherwise difficult to reach. This audience is more engaged, quicker to convert, and far more likely to stay loyal over time, Magnetto says.

A professional, tech-savvy audience

According to the study, Telegram mostly draws a professional, tech-savvy audience. Around 21% of the app’s users are employed in IT and Internet-related fields, 12% are in marketing and public relations, and 4% work in finance.

This makes Telegram especially appealing for promoting tech solutions, (SaaS) products, or business-to-business (B2B) services, allowing brands to directly reach audiences who are more likely to respond, convert, and remain loyal.

Telegram also reaches people at different levels of decision-making. 44% of users are in non-managerial roles, making it a strong channel for reaching hands-on professionals and everyday decision influencers. These are the people who research tools, try new products, and recommend them to their teams or friends.

13% of Telegram users are in managerial positions with purchasing power or play a role in business decisions, which makes them a key audience for B2B, software-as-a-service (SaaS), and service-based brands.

Meanwhile, 5.5% of users are business owners. These are proactive, entrepreneurial, and always looking for ways to grow.

Over the past years, messaging apps have emerged as powerful communication channels for companies, which are utilizing SMS, WhatsApps, and other popular platforms to engage customers, promote services, and enhance user experience.

WhatsApp, for example, offers a dedicated app for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to communicate with customers. Dubbed WhatsApp Business, it allows companies to automate messages, organize chats, and provide efficient customer support.

Most recently, Meta overhauled WhatsApp Business’ pricing model, moving away from its old per-conversation pricing model and to a per-message system with volume-based discounts and free utility messages within a 24-hour window. These changes aim to position WhatsApp as a more attractive alternative to SMS for businesses, and encourage two-way conversation.

Experts predict that this will increase the volume of messages, which will eventually drive greater adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) agents used to automate customer interactions across WhatsApp, manage sales flows, and streamline support.

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