The digital advertising landscape is advancing rapidly, and brands are looking for new ways to engage their audience and build growth strategies. Telegram has emerged as a powerful platform offering brands the edge they need to stand out.
To take this concept forward, our latest ExtraMile by KnowledgeNile session is live. We’re super thrilled to be joined by Alex Malgin, CEO of Magnetto, a Telegram infrastructure partner and the world’s largest Telegram Ads seller.
With over 10 years of experience in B2B growth, Alex’s background spans performance marketing and analytics. Under his leadership, Magnetto has become the go-to channel for brands looking to reach global audiences through Telegram.
In this conversation, Alex discusses what motivated Magnetto to focus on Telegram in 2021, and highlights the challenges of building Telegram advertising infrastructure, integrating AI into the AdTech stack, and earning advertiser trust through measurable campaign results.
Alex also shares how Magnetto combines automation with human expertise to manage campaigns, the key metrics to measure campaign success, and more.
Join us to explore the world of Telegram advertising, AI-powered AdTech, and global digital growth!
In just five years, Magnetto has become the largest direct Telegram Ads seller. What motivated you to focus on Telegram as a significant advertising platform, and how does it influence your growth strategy?
Alex. Magnetto chose to focus on Telegram in 2021. At the time, most advertisers put their budgets into Meta, Google and TikTok. We saw the gap and moved first.
Telegram has always stood out with strong user intent and very different mechanics compared to traditional platforms. Five years ago, most players either ignored Telegram or treated it like just another algorithmic feed, running the same Meta and Google playbook. Here's what they missed:
First, Telegram doesn’t depend on strict algorithms that often limit visibility.
Second, user behavior inside Telegram is different: people are more focused and more willing to take action.
Third, even today, competition on Telegram remains far lower than on the major ad platforms, so brands that entered the platform early gained a significant advantage.
At Magnetto, we decided to go deep: understand the mechanics, build internal expertise, test a lot, and treat Telegram as more than a traditional advertising channel. At that time, there were no agencies offering this. We saw a blue ocean and believed that Telegram could grow into a full ecosystem for communication, acquisition, onboarding and retention. That bet turned into direct infrastructure access for Magnetto.com: Business Ad Accounts and fully global reach.
Challenges are a part of every successful journey! What obstacles did you face while growing a digital marketing agency from scratch as CEO, and how did you overcome them?
Alex. One of the main challenges was the lack of infrastructure in the early days of Telegram Ads. There were limited tools, analytics, and very little market understanding. So, we had to build a lot of things ourselves.
At Magnetto, we developed our own analytics platform for tracking, testing and optimization, so clients get a clear view of campaign performance. The platform also includes a spy service that shows what our clients' competitors are doing in the market and identifies new opportunities for brands.
Trust was another challenge. Since Telegram Ads were new for many advertisers, clients were unsure whether the channel could be effective. We had to prove that Telegram could deliver real business results, so we did that through real campaigns, clear numbers, and transparent communication.
From day one, Magnetto's team believed in Telegram Ads, even when the market was cautious. We kept testing, learning quickly, and sharing honest results with our clients. Now, five years later, we see that brands actively use Telegram, and very often, the channel exceeds their expectations.
Telegram Ads are gaining a boost today! What unique benefits do you see in the platform’s user behavior compared to traditional social media channels?
Alex. Telegram engagement is more focused. People join channels because they are genuinely interested in the topic, and over time, they build trust in the content, the tone of voice, and the source itself. That is why advertising in Telegram often feels like a native recommendation, especially when it is placed in the right context.
Our Telegram marketing report shows how naturally Telegram fits into people’s everyday routines: 8 out of 10 users say it’s their go-to source for staying informed, 73% use it because it’s easier than other messaging apps, and 59% say it’s where most of their conversations happen.
Another advantage is cost efficiency. Traditional channels are becoming more crowded, and CPMs are rising. On Telegram, CPMs can start from as low as €0.03, while on Meta Ads they typically range from €2 to €23. This means brands can test and scale Telegram Ads campaigns without overspending.
How did your professional journey look before building Magnetto, and how did those experiences shape your leadership style today as CEO? Could you walk us through those early years?
Alex. My background has always been at the intersection of analytics and business. At university, I focused on automating economic processes, which sparked my interest in both IT and economics. I’ve also played volleyball throughout my life, and it has taught me the core principles of building teams: alignment, discipline, and trust. At the very beginning of my career, I worked as an analyst at a mobile operator, where I learned that data should back every decision. After that, I spent several years building and managing different advertising projects.
All of this naturally led to Magnetto. We don’t position ourselves as a typical agency. Over the past five years we have transformed into a Telegram infrastructure partner with exclusive advertising tools that other agencies can’t access. Early on, I saw where the next billion Telegram users would come from, before most of the industry looked twice. That conviction is what got us the partnership with Telegram and pushed us to build the AdTech to run it at scale.
As a CEO today, I try to keep the balance. On one hand, I rely on structured data. On the other hand, I know that the market changes fast, so flexibility is extremely important. I also give a lot of ownership to the team. When people understand the goal and have freedom to act, they deliver better results.
Alex, a solid marketing success, needs both automation and human elements! What’s your take on this approach? Can it bring standout results?
Alex. I don’t see automation and human input as opposing forces. In practice, both are essential, but they serve different roles.
Automation is most useful where the work is repetitive, data-heavy, and time-sensitive. It helps with campaign monitoring, segmentation, reporting, and all the operational tasks that need to be managed continuously and without delay. Nowadays you simply can’t run performance marketing well without this layer.
The human side drives strategy. You can’t fully automate all business processes that depend on judgment: deciding what to test, which audience to focus on, how to frame the offer, and when to scale or slow down. That’s especially true in channels like Telegram, where the same tool can produce very different results depending on the market, the audience, and the way the message is delivered.
So for me, the strongest setup is very clear: automation gives you speed and structure, while people bring context, prioritization and commercial sense. This combination delivers the best results.
With AI around, it is booming the marketing scenario. How does Magnetto integrate AI into its core AdTech stack? Could you share insights on this?
Alex. AI is already part of our daily work at Magnetto. Our Telegram campaigns run across dozens of channels and creatives at once. AI processes that volume and catches patterns faster than we could by hand.
For example, we use AI to analyze campaign performance, compare different creatives, and understand which combinations of targeting, placement and content perform best. It also cuts the time the team spends on repetitive tasks, so people spend more time on decisions that actually move the campaign forward.
However, at Magnetto we don’t rely on AI blindly. In performance marketing, you need to understand the audience, the brand, the market situation, and the commercial goal behind each campaign. AI can show patterns, but people still need to interpret them and decide what to do next.
So, inside the company, we keep asking a simple question: “Can AI make this faster, smarter, or easier?” If the answer is yes, we test it and integrate it into the workflow. This mindset helps us stay more agile and move faster without losing quality.
Telegram is very different from traditional social media platforms. How does your team make sure ad creatives feel native and stand out in such a competitive space?
Alex. Users come to Telegram for useful content, updates, communities and trusted channels, so the ad has to fit that environment.
At Magnetto, we start with the context. We look at the channel, its audience, content format and previous performance data. A creative for a finance channel, a crypto community, or an education-focused audience should not be the same. The message has to be relevant to where it appears and explain the value in a way that gives people a reason to act.
We test constantly, because small details can seriously affect performance: the opening line, the offer, the CTA and even how the product is explained. That is why we usually prepare several creative ideas and compare them based on real campaign data.
From your perspective, what metrics matter the most when measuring campaign success in a performance marketing context?
Alex. I split metrics into two groups: early indicators of success and the metrics tied directly to business outcomes.
Early indicators help understand whether a campaign moves in the right direction. CTR, CPC, CPM, cost per landing page view, and install rate tell you whether the ad gets attention and whether the first step of the funnel works. What they do not tell you is if the traffic is actually valuable.
Business metrics matter more and the right ones depend on what the client cares about. In fintech or crypto, for example, they are usually cost per verified user, cost per deposit, activation rate, or retention after the first meaningful action. In e-commerce, that's usually cost per completed purchase and purchase rate, not just add-to-cart numbers. A campaign can have excellent CTR and low CPC, but if users don’t finish registration, fail KYC, or never make a deposit, those numbers are no different from a cart full of items nobody paid for.
I think this is where a lot of teams get misled. It’s easy to celebrate strong top-of-funnel performance because those numbers come quickly and look good in reports. However, real campaign quality usually becomes visible deeper in the funnel. Sometimes the campaign with the cheapest clicks performs worse in the end than the one with more expensive traffic but stronger intent.
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