FAQ and Troubleshooting
Each answer here is deliberately short. Where a topic has a full page, follow the link — that page has the step-by-step version.
The bot
I messaged the bot and it just points me to the website. Is it broken?
No — that is exactly how it is meant to work. The bot has no chat menus or commands, and nothing is bought, created or managed inside it. Any message you send gets one reply with an Open Onflow Ads button. Its real work — messaging you, publishing and removing posts, and checking they stayed up — happens in the background. See Bot vs Website.
Which bot is the real one?
Always open it from a button on onflowads.com — Connect Telegram on the account page carries the official link. The real bot never asks you for a password, a payment detail or a code somebody else sent you. See Starting the Bot.
Do I need to keep the bot chat around?
Yes. It is where your DM notifications and campaign alerts land.
Telegram does not let us re-open a chat you closed, and nothing on the website tells you it happened — you simply stop hearing about bookings, deliveries and payouts while your orders carry on. If you blocked or deleted the chat, unblock the bot and send /start once. Mute the chat instead if you only want it quiet.
What permissions does the bot need on my channel?
Add it as an administrator from the website when you enroll the channel. Post Messages is required everywhere. Delete Messages is also required for the Subscriber Exchange, because the exchange promises a placement comes down after 24 hours. Edit Messages is recommended. Edit Messages of Others — the switch that lets a bot pin in a channel — is needed only if you want to sell a pin product — you can verify a channel without it, but the rate-card editor will refuse to switch that extra on until the bot has it. Its access is also what lets it confirm your post stayed up — see What the Bot Checks.
I pressed Start but nothing is linked to my account.
Pressing Start on its own only opens the chat. To pair your identities you must open the bot from Connect Telegram on the account page, or sign in through Log in with Telegram. See Starting the Bot.
The connection requirement
Why am I being asked to connect Telegram before I can do anything?
Every account created since 24 August 2026 has to be reachable on both Telegram and email before it can open a marketplace flow, because every flow sends you things you have to actually receive. It is one screen and takes a minute — see Why You Must Connect.
I signed in with Telegram. Why is it asking for my email?
Because the account it created for you carries a placeholder address with no inbox behind it. Adding a real address gives you a second way to be reached, email receipts, and a way back in if you ever lose Telegram access.
I am blocked but my partner is waiting on me.
You are not. Actions on something you are already a party to — approving a partner's post, cancelling before go-live, responding to a booking — are never behind the requirement. Only starting something new is.
I have had my account for a year and I have never connected. Am I about to be locked out?
No. Accounts created before the cutoff are never walled. You are prompted, not blocked.
Signing in and linking
How does signing in with Telegram work?
You press Log in with Telegram on onflowads.com and confirm once inside Telegram — there is no code to type. Telegram sends the site a signed identity it verifies, and your browser signs itself in. See Signing In with Telegram.
How long do I have to finish signing in?
About ten minutes from pressing the button. After that the attempt expires and you press it again. Finish in the same browser you started in.
My account page says my Telegram is linked, but I get no messages.
That is the third state, and it is normal after Log in with Telegram. Telegram forbids a bot from opening a conversation, so linking gives us your id without permitting a single message. The card shows an amber line and re-labels its button Open the bot — press it, tap Start, and refresh. See Connecting Your Telegram.
The bot says "Link expired" when I try to connect.
Connection links are single-use and last about ten minutes. Go back to onflowads.com/account, press Connect Telegram again, and tap Start promptly.
"Already connected elsewhere" — what now?
Your Telegram is linked to a different Onflow Ads account. Sign in to that account — Log in with Telegram always lands on the account your Telegram points at. You cannot move the link between accounts yourself; if it genuinely sits on the wrong account, that is a support request — the team can unlink it, and you then connect it to the right account.
"Account already linked" — what now?
The account you are signed in to already has a different Telegram on it. One account pairs with exactly one Telegram, and there is no way to swap which.
Can I unlink my Telegram myself?
No, and nobody else can either.
There is no self-service unlink, no administrator action and no support tool that detaches a Telegram link or moves it to another account. It lasts for the life of the account. The only thing that frees a Telegram account is closing the Onflow Ads account it is attached to, which you request through support — and closing takes your wallet balance, campaign history and standing with it.
I seem to have two accounts — one from the bot, one from the website.
Sign in to your main website account, open the account page and press Connect Telegram, then tap Start. If that Telegram is sitting on a starter account, the starter account is folded into your main one — balances, channels, orders and history combine, and the starter account ceases to exist. If it is on a real account instead, the bot refuses and nothing is merged. It cannot be undone. See Connecting Your Telegram.
Notifications
I get emails but no Telegram DMs.
Check four things, in order:
- Your account is paired — the account page's Telegram connection card says so.
- You have started the bot — an amber line on that card means this is what is missing.
- The Telegram toggle for that category is on, at onflowads.com/telegram/dashboard/notifications.
- You have not blocked the bot in Telegram.
I turned all four Telegram toggles off and now the bot has gone completely silent.
That is what all four off means (Orders, Payments, Marketplace and System). The bot reads it as "do not reach me on Telegram at all", which also covers the many messages that belong to no category. Turn at least one back on. A short list of money and deadline events — a failed payment, a declined order, a delivered ad awaiting confirmation, a rejected withdrawal, a short-delivered boost, a paused auto-boost — still delivers regardless.
I muted a category. Will I get a recap of what I missed?
No. A muted category is simply not sent as a Telegram DM, on every plan — nothing is held back to be sent later. Your in-app feed has recorded everything, so that is where to catch up.
Do email digests delay my Telegram alerts?
No. Digest settings batch emails only; Telegram DMs are sent as they happen. Urgent emails skip the digest as well.
Can I turn Telegram alerts on but emails off?
Yes — the toggles are independent, per category. See Notifications from the Bot.
I muted a category and now I miss things.
Your in-app feed always records everything, whatever the toggles say. Open the History tab of the Notifications page to catch up.
What is the short code at the bottom of a DM?
That is the Onflow Ads ID of whatever the message is about — the order, campaign, exchange ad or ticket. It is printed in monospace on its own line precisely so Telegram makes it tap-to-copy. The same ID reaches you as a Reference: line in the email and on the row in your in-app feed.
Campaign tracking
Where do I watch a campaign that is running right now?
On its own page on the website. The Campaign is Live! DM carries the code that names it — see Watching a Live Campaign.
My campaign page shows fewer opens than I expected.
Opens are counted once per reader per link per day, link-preview crawlers are excluded, and taps after the campaign ended are not counted. That is deliberate, so both partners see honest numbers. See Ad Posts and Click Tracking.
My caption links report nothing.
Caption links are tracked exactly like buttons — text links, and addresses and @handles typed into the text too, each published as its own onflowads.com/rr/… short link. A caption reports nothing only when nothing in it is a link a reader can tap, or what it carries is left as written: an email address, a link that is already an onflowads.com short link, or text in code formatting. On a post published before every link became a short link, an address typed bare into the caption was not counted.
A viewer told me my ad opened a chat with the bot before the destination.
Only a Subscriber Exchange placement published before links were planned by the website does that, and its whole reply is one line and one button. Everything published since opens without a chat, and today every link goes through its own onflowads.com/rr/… short link, which counts the tap and sends the reader straight on — a Telegram address back into Telegram, a web address to the page. No chat is involved.
A viewer ended up on the Onflow Ads home page instead of my link.
The tracking link could not be resolved, so the reader was sent somewhere safe rather than shown an error page. If the campaign is live and this repeats, open a ticket with the campaign code.
My member count went down during a campaign.
The figure is the net change in your channel's members over the campaign window, so it includes everything unrelated to the campaign. Read it alongside the opens figure.
Where do the final campaign numbers live?
In the Campaign Complete! DM, and permanently on the campaign's page on the website.
Ads in your channel
Can I see the exact ad before I accept a booking?
Yes. The booking DM carries 📄 Get the post here. Press it and the bot sends the placement into the chat — media, caption as it will publish, and the buttons — so you can judge it in the client that will render it. The accept or decline still happens on the website, where the bookings desk also spells out where each button really points. See Notifications from the Bot.
Why does my ad have a line under it saying "advertisement via onflowads.com"?
Because every placement Onflow Ads publishes is labelled as an advertisement. It is one line, one blank row under the creative, and it is added by the platform rather than left to the advertiser to remember.
It comes off only where the owner of the channel carrying the ad is on Plus or above — not the advertiser's plan, and not per engine. So an advertiser cannot buy it off somebody else's channel, and a Plus host's channel runs clean whoever paid for the ad. See Ad Posts and Click Tracking.
My ad published with no buttons, or without the colours I picked.
Buttons are a plan feature: Free gets none, Lite one, Plus two, Elite three, Master and Ultimate four. A creative saved on Free with buttons on it is refused outright with "Inline buttons are not available on this account."
Colours are separate and unlock on Plus. Below that rung a colour is quietly dropped rather than refused, so the creative saves and publishes — just uncoloured.
Why was my ad not pinned?
Because pinning is bought, not implied. "1 hour at the top" and the other top-of-feed formats are not pinned; they promise the ad is the newest post in the channel for that window. A pin comes from the Pinned for the whole campaign extra or the 7 days in feed · pinned throughout format, and nothing else.
If a pin was bought and did not happen, it is usually because the bot lacks Edit Messages of Others in that channel. That failure is recorded as the platform's fault and is not turned into a penalty against the owner.
The checks
I was penalised for posting in my own channel.
A placement sold as "an hour at the top" means nothing else goes up in that hour. Publishing during the window costs the channel owner 0.40 points of reliability, applied once, with no effect on the payout. You are told in your Paid Promotions notification feed on the website — this one does not arrive as a DM. See What the Bot Checks.
Why does the bot need to stay an administrator of my channel after the post is up?
Because its access is how the platform can tell the post is still there. Remove it mid-run and the placement can no longer be confirmed — see What the Bot Checks.
Telegram was down and my post could not be checked. Am I penalised?
No. A check that could not be completed is counted and retried, never treated as a violation on its own — and if the checking machinery itself is unhealthy, that cycle is not counted against anyone at all.
I was flagged for removing a post. Can I contest it?
Yes. Use the See why & appeal button on the DM, or open your reliability page on the website. The bot only recorded the fact; the website priced it and wrote the ledger entry on your account — there is no bot-side verdict — see Appeals and fraud concerns.
The DM says a penalty was "recorded" but I cannot see it on my ledger.
The website prices what the bot recorded on its next sweep, usually within a minute — reload the page shortly. If the DM said logged for review, nothing could be recorded and nothing has been applied.
A button told me to "slow down".
The bot spends one token per tap from a small per-user bucket — 20 updates in 10 seconds, and tighter on a few buttons such as Get the post here (3 a minute per booking). A double-tap is forgiven; a loop is clamped. Wait a moment and tap once. See Security and rate limits.
The bot has stopped responding to me entirely.
If your account has been suspended, the bot ignores everything from it: no button works, no deep link counts, no campaign step advances. It tries to tell you why with a short message. Standing is contested on the website — see Account standing.
Still stuck?
Open the support desk on the website: onflowads.com/telegram/dashboard/support. The bot is not a support desk and cannot answer a question you send it.
If your question is about one specific order, campaign, listing or payment, quote its Onflow Ads ID — the code printed at the bottom of the DM about it. Your ticket gets its own OFS-… reference in return.