Telegram lead bot

The lead generation bot that doesn't get you banned: people come to it from your posts, ads and site, answer a couple of questions, and reach you with everything you need to reply.

What is a Telegram lead bot?

A Telegram lead bot captures enquiries from people who chose to start it. Each place you promote gets its own bot link, so the bot knows the source. The visitor can contact you straight away or answer two or three questions; either way you receive a lead card with their handle, the answers and the source, and later broadcasts go only to people who opted in. It replaces mass-DM "lead bots", which break Telegram's rules and get accounts banned.

Why not a DM bot?

Because Telegram doesn't let a bot write to someone who never started it, and using user accounts to do it is spam under Telegram's terms. Bots built that way work for a few days, then the accounts die and take your reputation with them. An inbound bot only talks to people who pressed Start, so there is nothing to ban.

What it does, step by step

1. Each post, ad, partner and QR code gets its own start link (up to 64 characters of letters, digits, underscore and hyphen), so every lead arrives with its source.
2. Two buttons: Message me now for people ready to talk, Help me choose for people who want guidance.
3. "Help me choose" asks one to three questions, only the ones that change your answer.
4. You get a lead card in Telegram (and, if you want, in a sheet or by email) with the handle, answers and source.
5. Leads you don't acknowledge in time get a reminder.
6. Broadcasts go only to people who opted in, inside Telegram's sending limits.

The rules it is built on

• A bot cannot start a conversation. A user has to press Start or add the bot to a group first, so every message the bot sends goes to someone who asked for it.
• Bots must not spam or harass users with unsolicited messages (Bot Developer Terms, section 5.2(b)). A Start is a request for an answer, not permission for unlimited marketing, so every lead bot we build has an opt-in and a stop button.
• Sending limits: about 30 messages per second across all chats, no more than one per second in a single chat, and 20 per minute in a group (bot FAQ). Paid broadcasts raise it to 1,000 per second at 0.1 Stars per message, for bots with at least 100,000 Stars and 100,000 monthly active users.

Where lead bots fail

Two places. First, traffic: a lead bot captures demand, it doesn't create it. Second, too many questions: every extra step before contact loses people, which is why the direct button is always there. If several people share the leads and need owners and statuses, you've outgrown a lead bot; that is the CRM bot.

Telegram lead bot FAQ