Getting started

• On Telegram, you need a bot. Follow the steps explained below, starting with creating the channel. If you already have a channel and a bot, go straight to the assistant.
• On WhatsApp, you use a phone number that is linked once, with no bot. We recommend using a number separate from your main one and making it an administrator of your channel. Link the number, add the channel from Channels or from the assistant itself, and skip the bot steps. The prerequisites are in WhatsApp.

You can use both options at once: each channel publishes through the route of its own application.

Create your account

Sign in with Continue with Google or Continue with Telegram. The first time, the account is created as you continue, on the free plan and without a card, and with it your organization. With Telegram it also asks for an email, because Telegram does not share it. Creating the account goes through it step by step.

Until the organization's owner confirms their email nothing is published; with Google it arrives already confirmed. Confirming the email explains it.

Create a Telegram channel

If you already have a channel, skip to the bot. If not, create it in the Telegram app, on your phone or computer:

1. Press the button to write a new message, the pencil —on a computer, open the menu— and choose New Channel.
2. Give it a name and, if you like, a description and a photo. It is what your audience will see.
3. Choose whether it is public or private. A public channel has a link like t.me/my_channel, with the alias you choose, and anyone can find it; a private one can only be joined with its invitation link.
4. Telegram offers to add subscribers. You can skip it and share the link later.

To connect it afterwards, a public channel is the most direct: you just paste its link. A private one works too, with one more step: Your first channel explains it.

Create the bot with @BotFather

The bot is what publishes to your channels on the application's behalf. One is enough: it belongs to the organization and all your channels share it.

1. In Telegram, look for @BotFather, the official one, with the blue verification mark, and send it /newbot.
2. It asks for a name and an alias. The alias has to end in “bot”, like my_channel_deals_bot.
3. When you finish it gives you the token, a line like 1234567890:ABCdefGHIjklMNOpqrsTUVwxyz. Copy it: you will paste it into the assistant.

Do you already have a bot? It works just the same: @BotFather shows you its token from /mybots.

Make the bot an administrator of the channel

To publish, the bot has to be an administrator of the channel with the Post messages permission, which is the only one it needs:

1. Open your channel in Telegram, press its name at the top and go into editing it.
2. Under Administrators, press Add Administrator and look for your bot by its alias.
3. Leave Post messages ticked and save.

Repeat this step for each channel you add.

The setup assistant

With the channel and the bot ready, the assistant connects them to the application. While your organization is missing a connection (the Telegram bot or the WhatsApp number) or the first channel, Home offers it to you. It never opens by itself: you open it with Start.

Only the organization's owner sees it, as the one who can connect the bot and create channels.

The steps

Pressing a step in the list takes you to it, done or not: that is how you change something you had already saved.

Telegram or WhatsApp

If you publish on WhatsApp, press Link a WhatsApp number, below the bot field. You will go to the screen explained in Linking the number and, as soon as WhatsApp confirms the number, you will return to the assistant at the next step still pending. If you change your mind, press Back to the assistant to stay where you were.

With the number connected, you will see WhatsApp connected and the number above the bot field. The step is completed even if you do not connect the bot; the rest is for the Telegram bot.

Paste the token in the Telegram bot token field and press Check connection, which saves the token and asks Telegram. If a token was already saved, the field shows it as a row of dots and typing a new one replaces it.

If it answers “The connection works.”, with your bot's name and alias, the step is done and the assistant moves on to the next one by itself.

Your first channel

With the bot already an administrator of the channel, paste into Channel link, alias or ID something like https://t.me/my_channel, its alias or its ID, and press Connect (or Enter). The assistant asks Telegram and tells you whether the bot can publish there and, if not, why: that it is not in the channel, that it is not an administrator or that it has no permission to post.

With the answer, Channel name appears, filled in with the real name, which you can change: it is how you will see it in the application. Create the channel only turns on when Telegram answers that the bot can publish.

With the WhatsApp number connected, this step also shows its channels. If you only have the number, you will see just the WhatsApp part; if you have the bot and the number, the Telegram channel appears first and, below it, Or pick a WhatsApp channel. After the message Looking up your WhatsApp channels…, the channels where your number is an administrator are shown, each with an Add button: pressing it creates the channel and the assistant moves on to the next step.

If you already have a channel registered —from Settings › Channels, say—, the step shows as done and does not ask you for another: it tells you which one it is and whether the bot can publish in it, and lets you carry on. Further channels are added from that same section: Creating a channel explains it.

Region and time zone

They arrive filled in with what was worked out from your browser when you signed up: the region, which decides the currency, the separators and the date format, and the time zone, in which the queue's resting hours are counted. Below, This is how it will be published shows how a price and a date will be written with what is chosen, and it changes instantly if you choose another region.

Press Confirm and continue to save both values, even if you have not changed anything. Until you do, the step stays marked as pending. They are settings of the organization, not yours: they apply to everyone working in it. Afterwards they are changed in Settings › Region: Region and time zone explains it.

Your Amazon tag

If you publish Amazon offers, enter your Amazon Associates affiliate tag here (for example, your-tag-21), which you'll find at the top right of their dashboard. With it, every Amazon link you publish will include your commission. You don't need Amazon API access: you don't need it to publish or get paid.

Save and finish saves the tag and completes the setup. With Not now, you can skip this step and configure it whenever you like in Settings › Amazon. If you have already created a rule for Amazon in Affiliates, this step will show as completed, since your links take the tag from that rule.

When you finish

The last screen says Connection and channel ready —or Something is still missing before you can publish, if you skipped a necessary step— and sums up what has been set up. Further down are three things you can do whenever you like, none of them compulsory: Upgrade your plan, if you need more channels, more automations or more credits; Save credits, by adding the Amazon and AliExpress credentials; and Customize your publications. We explain the last two in What comes next.

The Create my first offer button takes you to Create offer. Next to it, Start the tour closes the assistant and shows you where each menu section is on Home, as explained in The welcome tour. If you are missing a required step, you will see Complete what is missing instead of these two, which takes you straight to that step.

Leaving and coming back

Skip for now leaves it for later: it stays on Home and you pick it up where you left off.

While a step is still missing you can come back to the assistant from two places:

• From Home. While connecting the bot or the channel is still pending, the top card will show the pending steps and the Start button (or Resume, if you have already completed one). Once publishing works and only the region is left, a notice will appear on Home with the Confirm button.
• From Create offer, on the card “Set the application up so you can publish” —or “You still have setup to finish”, if you have already done some step—, with the same button.

Coming back, the assistant enters at the first step still pending rather than at the beginning, and moving on skips the steps already done, including those done from Settings. Once the bot, the channel and the region are set up, both entries disappear from Home, even if you have not added your Amazon tag. From then on, the bot, the channels, the region and the tag are managed directly from Settings.

If one day you delete the bot token from Settings › Connections, Home warns you again and the Create offer card comes back, on their own. If what happens is that Telegram rejects the saved token, the assistant does not come back: a row in Home's verdict says so, with the button to check it.

Your first offer

In Create offer:

1. Paste a product link and press Extract data: the title, the photo and the prices are filled in, and the affiliate link is built.
2. Check the preview: it is the message exactly as it will reach the channel.
3. Press Publish.

The fields, what happens when a store gives no data and everything else on that screen is explained in Create offer.

What comes next

None of this is needed to publish, but it is what makes the offers yours:

• The message: what data each offer carries, in what order and in what format. It is decided in each channel's message template, with the Template editor.
• The image: the product photo over your background, with the prices on top, from the Solo plan. Image template editor explains it.
• The queue: leaves offers to go out on their own, spaced out and at their time, from the Solo plan. Publication queue explains it.
• Stores and your affiliate code: on Amazon, you only need your tag to earn commissions, and for any other store a rule is enough. In addition, with your Amazon and AliExpress credentials, reading their product pages uses no credits and automatic publishing can search for products in their catalogs. See the details in Stores and affiliation.