First test of Telegram Mini Apps as a gambling traffic source into Russia — nearly 3,000 registrations in a month at a $3.10 CPA, scaling daily budget from $100 to $300.
The task
By the start, the advertiser had confirmed demand but no controllable volume. The goal was to test Telegram Mini Apps for the first time as a gambling traffic source into Russia — the channel was unproven for the team at the outset.
We worked the "iGaming" vertical in the Russia market. Payment model — CPA per registration, main sources — Telegram Mini Apps.
How we did it
The setup was built sequentially, testing hypotheses on small budgets.
- Chose the channel precisely because Mini Apps carry none of Telegram's official ad restrictions on gambling, combined with low CPC from $0.015 and high engagement inside bots and clicker games.
- Launched the campaign deliberately unoptimized at the start — $100/day, no rules — purely to see raw traffic quality before any interventions.
- After the first data came in, built a whitelist of the strongest-converting sources, raised the bid to $0.05, and scaled the daily budget to $200 and then $300.
- Built creative around recognizable, credible-reading patterns: mimicking the format of real messages, specific bonus amounts, brand logos, images of the winning moment.
What went wrong
Not everything went according to plan. The channel was completely unproven for the team, and it remained to be seen whether traffic quality would hold up as budget scaled without losing efficiency.
After whitelisting the strongest sources and raising the bid to $0.05, win rate rose to 42%, CTR to 6.7%, and CPA held steady even as spend grew to $300/day — scaling without losing efficiency was the real test of the optimization work.
The result
Here are the final numbers for the buying period. Over the a month: registrations — 2,968, cpa — $3.10, spend — $9,201.
2,968 registrations at $3.10 CPA, 2.6M impressions, 177,764 clicks, and $9,201 total spend for the month.
What we took away
- Telegram Mini Apps as a channel carries none of Telegram's official ad restrictions on gambling — this opens up verticals closed off in standard Telegram Ads.
- Launching deliberately unoptimized at the start is a way to see the true quality of raw traffic before whitelisting, not an obstacle to optimization.
These numbers belong to one specific setup, geo, and buying period. Economics will differ on another offer or in another season — we always recalculate them before launch.