Telegram 2023: who is the audience?

Publication date: 19 May 2023

Telegram is one of the most popular services used by approximately 75 million people every day. What makes Telegram unique is that it successfully combines the functions of a messenger and a social network, allowing people to publish and comment on information. In May, several research companies simultaneously published their research on Telegram’s audience in 2023. 

• Note that the platform is constantly improving! Every month there is something new on Telegram that can be used to promote betting and gambling.

Telegram users in 2023: audience features

Telegram is among the TOP-5* internet resources visited in Russia. Over 40% of the population uses it daily, with the average user spending 39 minutes on the service. Another 60% visits it at least once a month. This information was found out by Mediascope experts based on the results of a survey conducted in March 2023.

*The most popular resources are still Whatsapp, Yandex, Google, VKontakte and Youtube.

Until 2022, Telegram was a more youthful platform. However, the growing interest of the older population has led to a change in the structure of its audience. Now Telegram is a more universal platform that is interesting to users of all genders and ages.

Nevertheless, users from 12 to 24 years old are still in the first place. About 70% use Telegram to read channels; for the youngest users, it is the main and only messenger. 

Since 2022, Telegram channels have become both a source of information and news as well as a new platform for personal blogging.  As a consequence, Telegram has become the platform with the highest increase among social networks in 2022.

TGStat provided its data. Within this study, Telegram’s audience is as follows: 

• Among users, 58% are male and 42% female.
• Age of users: 25 to 34 years old are the most popular, at around 30%. Among other age groups, the popularity is distributed relatively evenly. At the same time, experts specified that the share of users who are over 35 years old has increased (from 40% to 45%). 
• By regions of Russia: the greatest number of users is in Moscow (31%) and St. Petersburg (13%). Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Krasnodar and Kazan are also at the top of the list.
• By income: a stable high percentage of the audience with high income, 21% of them earn over 150 thousand roubles per month, while 6.6% earn over 300 thousand roubles per month.  Another 30% of those who earn from 45 to 90 thousand roubles. 

According to TGStat, there are already more than 700 thousand channels in Russian-language Telegram. Moreover, while in 2021 only about 33% of respondents were subscribed to more than 25 channels, now the share of such users is already almost 50%. 25% of users are subscribed to more than 50 channels.

Advertising on Telegram: tools and effectiveness

TGStat estimates that 32% of users “often” see official advertising on the platform, while 35% “rarely” see it. 17% of those surveyed have a Telegram Premium subscription, so they don’t see any ads at all. 

• Among channel administrators who place ads, 20% schedule content through special bots. However, almost 75% of admins still choose to post directly: they find Telegram’s built-in editor with the ability to delay posts convenient.
• To monitor the effectiveness of advertising campaigns, 64% of administrators of monetized channels use specialized analytics services, 71% look at Telegram’s internal statistics and 16% don’t use anything.
• For audience growth, 22% of administrators who make money from their channel do not make any effort. Meanwhile, 80% buy advertising on Telegram while 52% are engaged in cross promotion. Approximately 50% of the authors spend less than 5 thousand roubles for developing their channels, 12% spend between 30-90 thousand and more than 90 thousand every month, 4.5% spend more than 200 thousand roubles every month.

Telegram Ads is not popular with channel authors! Only 7% of administrators have used the platform’s services. The main reason is the €3k threshold, being the minimum in this advertising tool. Efficiency of advertising in Telegram Ads: only 24% of those who used the ad tool performed better than channel authors. 

The new law on advertising labeling in Russia is only followed by 23% of Telegram channel administrators. Another 30% follow it “depending on the situation”, while 27% have firmly decided not to comply with the law.

As a reminder, in March 2023 Telegram announced the launch of Nativity, a new automated advertising platform. This new service allows for compliance with the law on ad labeling in Russia: running an ad campaign includes receiving a token and generating a report.