Telegram entered affiliate marketing not because it is cheap but because nobody throws you out. Here is what that gives you in practice, and what it does not.
Strengths
No ad review. There is no creative to approve, because there is no creative — there is a message from a person.
The audience is pre-segmented. Channels and chats were sorted by topic by the people who made them. No targeting to configure.
A short path to action. Everything happens inside one app: no browser, no landing page, no form.
Cost does not rise with competition. In an auction your rival raises your price. Here they occupy the same chats, but you still pay for accounts and time.
Limits
A hard volume ceiling. Number of accounts times a safe daily limit. You cannot double traffic in a day — only double the fleet, and that is weeks of warm-up.
Accounts are consumed. A permanent cost line beginners fail to budget.
No auto-optimisation. Networks find the converting audience for you. Here the selection is entirely your work.
Which verticals fit
Those decided in conversation: gambling, betting, dating, info-products, services, B2B. Impulse-purchase product offers do worse — they need a shop window, not a dialogue.
The approach itself is described on the traffic arbitrage page, and the step-by-step order in how to run traffic from Telegram.