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Telegram Join Entry

Telegram Join Entry rewards free giveaway tickets when someone joins your Telegram group. A Telegram bot detects the join, collects the person’s email in a private chat, creates (or finds) their WooCommerce account, and allocates tickets to the giveaway you linked — all automatically. It’s a great way to grow an engaged Telegram community around your campaigns.

Requires: WooCommerce, the free Giveaway Lottery plugin, and a Telegram bot created with @BotFather. Your site must be reachable over HTTPS so Telegram can send join events to it (a webhook). The whole flow happens inside Telegram — there is no thank-you page prompt, My Account section, or shortcode.

How It Works

  1. A person joins your Telegram group.
  2. Your bot (which must be a group admin) detects the join through a webhook.
  3. The bot invites them to claim — by direct message, or with a Claim free tickets button in the group if it can’t message them yet.
  4. The person opens a private chat with the bot and sends their email address (no code to enter).
  5. WordPress finds or creates their WooCommerce customer account, links their Telegram identity, and allocates the configured free tickets to the giveaway.
  6. Each Telegram account can claim once per giveaway.

Step-by-Step: Set Up Telegram Join Entry

Part A — Create a Telegram Bot

  1. In Telegram, open a chat with @BotFather and press Start.
  2. Send /newbot, choose a display name, and a username ending in bot.
  3. BotFather replies with a bot token (looks like 123456789:AA...). Copy it.

Part B — Connect the Bot in WordPress

  1. Go to Giveaway Lottery → Telegram Entry, on the Bot & webhook tab.
  2. Turn on Enable Telegram join rewards.
  3. Paste your token into Bot token and click Save settings.
  4. Click Test bot token — on success it shows “Connected as @YourBot” and fills in the Bot username automatically.

Part C — Connect the Webhook

Telegram needs to send join events to your site over HTTPS.

  1. Make sure your site is served over HTTPS.
  2. On the same tab, click Connect webhook.
  3. You should see “Webhook connected. Telegram will now send join events to this site.” The Current Telegram webhook box shows the registered URL.

The webhook endpoint is https://yoursite.com/wp-json/giveaway-telegram/v1/webhook, secured with a secret token stored on your site. Use Disconnect webhook to remove it.

Part D — Prepare Your Telegram Group

  1. Create a Telegram group (or a channel’s discussion group).
  2. Add your bot to the group and promote it to Administrator so it can see join events.
  3. Get the group’s numeric chat ID (for example -1001234567890) — the Setup guide tab explains how, e.g. by temporarily adding a bot like @userinfobot.

Part E — Configure a Giveaway Product

  1. Go to Products → Edit your giveaway product.
  2. In the Product data panel, open the Telegram Entry tab.
  3. Tick Enable Telegram join tickets.
  4. Enter the Telegram group chat ID (the numeric ID from Part D).
  5. Set Free tickets on join (default 1).
  6. Click Update. If your bot username is set, a Manual claim link is shown that you can share directly.

Part F — Customize the Bot Messages (Optional)

On the Messages tab you can edit every message the bot sends, using placeholders {name}, {email}, {giveaway}, {tickets}, {order_id}:

  • Private welcome / ask for email
  • Group welcome (when bot cannot DM yet)
  • Success after tickets allocated
  • Already claimed
  • Invalid email
  • Giveaway inactive
  • Not a group member

Click Save messages.

The Manual Claim Link

You can also share a direct claim link anywhere (it deep-links into the bot):

https://t.me/{YourBotUsername}?start=claim_{product_id}

For example: https://t.me/MyGiveawayBot?start=claim_123

How Verification & Ticketing Work

  • Membership is verified through the Telegram Bot API (the bot checks the person is actually in the group).
  • Tickets are set per product via Free tickets on join; there is no global default.
  • Each Telegram account can claim once per giveaway. A zero-cost completed order is created behind the scenes and tickets are generated for the linked giveaway.
  • New customers created from a Telegram email receive the standard WordPress new-account email.

Where Claims Are Recorded

Go to Giveaway Lottery → Telegram Entry → Recent claims to see the latest successful grants (date, Telegram user, email, giveaway, tickets, order). The behind-the-scenes orders also appear in WooCommerce → Orders with the note “Telegram group join tickets.”

Pro tip: Add your bot as admin before promoting the group publicly — if the bot isn’t an admin when people join, it won’t see the join events and can’t award tickets.

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