A Telegram broadcast bot: managing your subscriber base correctly
Telegram broadcasts get opened more than email, but they are just as easy to ruin with spam. Here is how to run a list people don't grow to hate.
How the base forms
Everyone who presses Start on the bot automatically becomes a subscriber with a stored Telegram ID — a solid list that, unlike a manually collected phone number, needs no separate consent per message.
Segment the base early by traits: new customer, repeat customer, hasn't bought in a while, interested in a specific category. Without segmentation, a broadcast becomes a blanket blast.
Frequency and format
More than two or three broadcasts a week risks mass unsubscribes and complaints that can get the bot restricted. A reasonable baseline is one meaningful message a week plus targeted promotions.
Keep each message short, with a single clear goal and an action button. Long texts with multiple calls to action get skimmed or ignored.
Technical limits
Telegram throttles a bot's outgoing message rate, roughly 30 per second to private chats. With tens of thousands of subscribers a broadcast stretches into minutes — plan urgent notifications around that.
Handle the 'user blocked the bot' error by removing that contact from the base, or the next broadcast keeps hitting the same errors and slows down.
Handling unsubscribes
Blocking the bot is an unsubscribe, and some churn is normal — watch the percentage rather than any single case. A spike after one specific broadcast signals it is time to revisit frequency or content.
Let users pick which topics they want inside the bot (promotions, news, order status separately). This cuts unsubscribes far more than any technical trick.