How to Build a Sales Funnel in a Telegram Bot

Short answer

A bot funnel is a chain of stages where each step offers one clear action:

1. entry through a deep link carrying the source;
2. first value — a selection, a calculation, a gift;
3. qualification — two or three button questions;
4. an offer for that segment;
5. a request or payment;
6. follow-ups for people who stopped;
7. repeat purchases and referrals.

Every stage is logged as an event in the database, so you see where people leave.

Funnel map

Deep links: where did the person come from

A link like https://t.me/your_bot?start=ig_reels_oct opens the bot, and when the user taps "Start" it receives /start ig_reels_oct. The parameter is up to 64 characters of Latin letters, digits, _ and -. Create a separate link per channel: stories, a blogger, the website, a flyer.

from aiogram.filters import CommandStart, CommandObject

@router.message(CommandStart(deep_link=True))
async def start_with_source(message: Message, command: CommandObject):
    source = command.args  # e.g. "ig_reels_oct"
    await save_first_source(message.from_user.id, source)  # only if not saved yet
    await track(message.from_user.id, "start", source)
    await message.answer("Hi! Shall we find the right option in a minute?", reply_markup=start_kb)

Store the first source separately — otherwise a later visit through another link overwrites where the customer originally came from. From your website, pass the tag in the same link by shortening UTM parameters to a compact code.

Segmentation

Ask only what changes the offer: what they are interested in, for whom, what volume or budget, which delivery city. Every question uses buttons, not free text. Store answers as user tags: the bot uses them to pick the offer, and you use them to choose broadcast audiences.

Follow-up messages

If someone stops at a stage, after a set delay the bot comes back with one action: "Order", "Ask a manager", "Not now". Rules:

• you can only message people who started the bot and haven't blocked it; a 403 error means a block — mark the user inactive;
• one or two reminders per stage, then pause;
• every reminder has a "Stop reminders" button;
• store jobs in the database and run them with a scheduler, not an in-memory timer, so they survive restarts;
• respect Telegram's sending rate limits and on a 429 response wait for the retry_after time.

Payment and repeat purchase

You can take payment inside the bot via Telegram Payments with a payment provider, sell digital goods through Telegram Stars, or link to checkout on your website. The funnel doesn't end at purchase:

• confirm the order and send status updates;
• ask for a rating after a while;
• remind about a repeat purchase when the product usually runs out;
• give a referral link such as ?start=ref_12345 to see who brought whom.

Conversion tracking

One events table is enough:

CREATE TABLE funnel_events (
  id         BIGSERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
  user_id    BIGINT NOT NULL,
  event      TEXT NOT NULL,
  source     TEXT,
  created_at TIMESTAMPTZ NOT NULL DEFAULT now()
);

SELECT source, event, COUNT(DISTINCT user_id) AS users
FROM funnel_events
GROUP BY source, event
ORDER BY source, event;

Dividing user counts of adjacent stages gives step conversion, and splitting by source shows which channel brings buyers rather than just subscribers.

Common mistakes

• selling in the first message — without value or questions, people leave;
• one link for all channels — you can't tell what works;
• reminders without an opt-out — blocks go up;
• no handover to a manager — a complex question hits a dead end in the menu.