Real Players, Real Results: Lysto's Approach to Telegram Gaming Acquisition

The Telegram gaming boom

Telegram gaming has exploded from a curiosity to a phenomenon—jumping from 1 billion to over 3 billion monthly gaming sessions. With 800+ million monthly active users, it's become a gold rush for game developers.

But here's the catch: while download numbers looked impressive on paper, something wasn't adding up. Games with thousands of "players" felt oddly empty. User acquisition reports showed green arrows pointing up, but retention graphs looked like ski slopes pointing down. What was going on?

The Ghost player challenge

We've all been there—celebrating impressive download numbers on Monday, only to wonder where everybody went by Wednesday. 

After digging deeper with our partners, we discovered an uncomfortable truth: up to 80% of users acquired through traditional campaigns were either sophisticated bots or real people who downloaded and disappeared faster than free pizza at a college event.

This wasn't just frustrating—it was threatening the entire premise of Telegram gaming. What good is a multiplayer game without the "multi" part?

Choosing a different path

Lysto flipped the script on traditional user acquisition. Instead of chasing downloads, we focused on finding real players in their natural habitat through:

1. Performance-based influencer partnerships that rewarded engagement, not downloads

2. Direct outreach to authentic gaming communities where passionate players already gathered

Below are three Telegram cases that came our way, and our solves keeping the above in mind:

Boinkers: When less really is more

The Boinkers team approached Lysto with a familiar story: "We have users, but nobody's playing."

Lysto's community specialists took a counterintuitive approach: target fewer but better users. Our gaming community partners introduced Boinkers in spaces where genuine players gathered, while Lysto creators shared authentic gameplay experiences.

The result? 5,500 new players in a week with over 90% active engagement. As the Boinkers team put it: "Lysto turned the lights on and suddenly there were actual people in our game."

Tapshot: Tournaments turn browsers into players

Tapshot faced the classic chicken-and-egg problem: competitive games need players to be fun, but it's hard to attract players to an empty game.

Lysto crafted a three-pronged approach:

• A tournament with meaningful prizes hosted on the Lysto platform

• An Instagram reel (5,900+ views) showcasing real gameplay rather than marketing footage

• Targeted outreach to communities where similar games were already popular

The result was 10,000+ players in just two weeks—but more importantly, they were players who stuck around. Lysto's tournament created immediate engagement, and our community targeting ensured players who genuinely enjoyed that style of game.

In addition, there was a social media burst that churned our 24 creatives in less than 10 days. Overkill? Not really - the shoutout for the tournaments was designed and spread across days and channels, driving a 22% engagement rate overall. Social awareness pegged on FOMO and intrigue, and operational excellence ensured timely tournaments with adequate communication of those that levelled up and leaderboards.

Galfi: Proving quality can scale

"We need tens of thousands of players," the Galfi team told Lysto. The conventional wisdom was clear: you can have quality or quantity, but not both.

Lysto's team scaled our community approach while maintaining strict quality standards, delivering 30,000 genuine players in a month. The secret wasn't working harder—it was applying our formula across more communities while keeping our performance-based compensation model.

Unlike their previous campaigns, these weren't just numbers on a spreadsheet. These were actual humans who continued playing weeks after acquisition, creating a vibrant, sustainable game ecosystem.

Key insights and takeaways:

1. Real engagement delivers 5x better value: Across all campaigns, Lysto's engaged players showed retention rates 5x higher than industry averages for Telegram games.

2. Performance-based influencer marketing transforms outcomes: By shifting from CPM to engagement-based compensation, Lysto helped clients reduce effective acquisition costs by 40-60%.

3. Community targeting is the foundation: Identifying and accessing authentic gaming communities reduced bot/spam accounts from ~80% to less than 5% across all campaigns.

4. Quality scales with the right approach: Lysto's largest campaign (50,000+ players) maintained the same quality metrics as its smallest (5,000+ players), proving quality acquisition can scale.

At Lysto, we're still refining our approach every day, but one truth remains constant: in Telegram gaming, authentic community connections beat clever ad campaigns every time. We're not just finding users who download—we're finding players who play. And in gaming, that makes all the difference.