Measuring ROI on Facebook Ads for Telegram Groups

Why standard ROI calculations do not apply

In a web funnel, spend is recorded in the ads manager and revenue is recorded by a pixel on the confirmation page, so return on ad spend is a single division. In a Telegram group, every step after the click (the join, the conversation and the deposit) takes place in an app the ad platform cannot observe. Without an attribution layer, you know total spend and total revenue but not which campaign links them.

The metrics that matter

Cost per join: spend divided by the number of people who joined the group, not by clicks.
Join rate: joins divided by clicks. A low join rate usually indicates a problem at the landing step rather than in the ad.
Cost per conversation: spend divided by the number of people who message you.
Cost per deposit: the primary measure of whether a campaign is profitable.
Revenue per campaign and, over time, revenue per join cohort, so a campaign whose members pay later is not judged on its first week alone.

Measurement setup

Route every ad through a tracking link so each click receives an id and a campaign.
Have the bot issue single-use invites so each join is matched to one click, even when all campaigns lead to the same group.
Report deposits with the click id through a postback or the event API, including value and currency.
Send joins and deposits to Meta as standard events so bidding can optimise for depositors.
Review the funnel by campaign and the join cohorts in one report rather than combining exports.

Illustrative example

The following figures are illustrative. A campaign spends €600 in a week and produces 240 clicks. 61 people join the group, a join rate of 25%, so each join costs €9.84. 14 of them message the admin. Over the following two weeks, 5 make deposits totalling €1,250. Cost per deposit is €120 and return on ad spend is 2.1. A second campaign spends the same €600 and receives 410 lower-cost clicks and 70 joins, but only one deposit of €150. On clicks and joins the second campaign performs better; on revenue it loses money. Only deposit data identifies which campaign to scale.

Mistakes that make weak campaigns look strong

Evaluating campaigns on cost per click. Low-cost clicks and profitable members often come from different audiences.
Evaluating on cost per join without cohort revenue. Some audiences join readily and never pay.
Not reporting deposits to the ad platform, so it continues to optimise for clicks.
Using one shared invite link, which combines every campaign into a single join count.
Calculating ROI too early. Deposits follow joins by days or weeks; cohort reports account for this delay.

How Tellmetric reports ROI

The Tellmetric dashboard shows the funnel by campaign, with clicks, joins, messages, deposits and deposit value in a single row. Join cohorts group members by the week they joined and track the revenue they generate afterwards, so lifetime value is measured rather than estimated. The same events are delivered to Meta, TikTok, Snapchat, Reddit, Spotify and Google Ads, and every record can be exported as CSV for analysis in a spreadsheet.

Frequently asked questions

Does Tellmetric import my ad spend from Meta?

Yes. When you add your Meta ad account to the workspace, Tellmetric imports daily spend and shows cost per join, cost per deposit and return on ad spend alongside the funnel. Revenue per campaign and per cohort is calculated automatically.

How is a deposit attributed when it occurs three weeks after the join?

Tellmetric keeps the click attached to the Telegram user indefinitely. Meta attributes the deposit within its own attribution window; your dashboard shows it regardless of that window.

Can I compare creatives as well as campaigns?

Yes. Set the creative in utm_content and group by it in the funnel view.

Measuring ROI on Facebook ads for Telegram groups