Russian bloggers who tested Yandex’s Telegram channel monetization tool for more than seven months reportedly earned a combined 275 million rubles, according to a Russian Forbes edition.
In July 2023, Yandex rolled out a monetization tool for Telegram channels. Over the testing period, about 4,500 channels participated, including large ones with several hundred thousand subscribers and smaller thematic blogs with a few thousand followers. Some channels with around 2,000 subscribers reported earnings up to 36,000 rubles, while channels reaching about 13,000 subscribers per month could generate as much as 117,000 rubles.
The Yandex tool operates on artificial intelligence. The neural network evaluates the channel topics and curates advertising posts that align with those themes. A bot added to the channel administrators handles the posting, making the ads appear native and consistent with the channel’s overall content. At the same time, the bot automatically shares ad details with the Unified Internet Advertising Registry (ERIR), reducing the administrative burden on content creators.
Forbes did not publish the full list of Telegram channels involved in the beta, but highlighted several notable participants. Among them were channels like Behind the Wheel, Kadın, Starhit, and Wday, which drew attention during the rollout. Alexey Kopotov, deputy director of the Za Rulem advertising bureau, noted that in some months the revenue from Yandex-provided advertising was on par with income from direct integration sales.
Pavel Durov, formerly the founder of Telegram, shared a new photo on Instagram as the platform’s owner, while Meta is known in Russia for facing regulatory restrictions and bans. This contextual backdrop helps explain the shifting landscape of social media monetization and the growing interest in native advertising solutions across major messaging channels.