How to send Telegram and WhatsApp campaigns from a CRM

A bulk campaign on Telegram and WhatsApp from a CRM is a scheduled or event-triggered send to a CRM customer segment, with delivery, reads and replies tracked in analytics. Not everyone can be messaged: a Telegram bot writes only to people who messaged it first, and WhatsApp Business requires the recipient’s opt-in and an approved template for the first message. So your campaign audience is the customers who already talk to you on that channel, not a purchased list of numbers. From 1 November 2026, Resolution PP-265 requires written or electronic consent for promotional SMS in Uzbekistan and bans promotional calls and messages over mobile networks from 18:00 to 09:00. In Zukko.AI the segment comes from tags, pipeline stage and history, unsubscribe is built in, and replies land in one inbox where an AI employee (AI agent) or a manager takes over. A small business launches its first campaign itself, from 2 hours.

Bulk messaging on Telegram and WhatsApp: who you can message

Both messengers decide for themselves who a business may contact first, and those rules outrank any setting in your software. Telegram’s documentation is blunt: a bot cannot start a conversation with a user — the person must message it first or add it to a group. The WhatsApp Business policy lets you contact only people who have given you their number and their opt-in, and a conversation may be initiated only with an approved message template. Free-form replies are allowed for 24 hours after the customer’s message, and every new message from the customer resets that window.

The practical conclusion: your campaign audience is the customers who already talk to you on that channel, not a purchased list of numbers. Sent to someone else’s list, a Telegram message simply will not arrive, and a WhatsApp message breaks the platform’s policy. Telegram also caps the rate of bulk notifications, so a large campaign goes out as a stream rather than all at once. How to collect consent and handle unsubscribes is covered in Consent and anti-spam.

Why Telegram and WhatsApp rather than SMS alone

In Uzbekistan customers and companies talk in messengers — Telegram above all; WhatsApp matters where your audience uses it. SMS remains for people you cannot reach in a messenger. A campaign that goes to both messengers from one CRM lands where the customer already reads your messages — and the reply comes back to the same place.

The key difference from a blunt broadcast: the message goes not to everyone but to a segment — a group of customers by tag, pipeline stage or history from the CRM.

How to set up a Telegram and WhatsApp campaign from a CRM

1. Connect the channels. Telegram and WhatsApp Business are connected to the platform on the Integrations page — no separate gateways needed. Onboarding for a small business takes from 2 hours.
2. Build the segment. Pick the audience in the CRM: tags, pipeline stage, history (“bought 3 months ago and gone quiet”). This is not a file of numbers — the segment holds customers who already talk to you on that channel.
3. Prepare a message for each channel. Text, attachments and a template. On WhatsApp the first message is a template approved by the platform. A message that worked is saved as a draft for later campaigns.
4. Choose the channels and the time. All channels at once or one by one; send now, on a schedule or on an event — a deal stage change, a date, a customer action; Tashkent time (UTC+5).
5. Launch and watch the analytics. The platform shows delivery, reads and replies in real time; customer replies arrive in the shared inbox rather than being lost.

A detailed walk-through of the whole mechanism is in the guide Bulk campaigns from a CRM.

Multichannel from one CRM instead of scattered gateways

The usual path is a separate SMS gateway, a separate service for Telegram and a manual export for WhatsApp. The data drifts apart, there are no shared analytics and replies get lost.

A CRM campaign pulls that into one loop:

• One segment, several channels. The customer gets the message in the messenger where they already talk to you.
• The reply comes back to the inbox. The campaign is outbound, but the customer’s reply is an inbound conversation; it lands in the single inbox rather than nowhere.
• Unified analytics. Delivery, reads and reply rate across every channel in one report, broken down by platform.

How a CRM campaign compares with an ordinary SMS gateway on capability is covered in CRM campaigns vs an SMS gateway.

Consent and data: what the law requires

Platform rules are not the only condition. Article 30 of the Law of the Republic of Uzbekistan “On Advertising” (ZRU-776) allows advertising in the course of providing telecommunications services — calls, SMS — only with the subscriber’s prior consent, and from 1 November 2026 Resolution PP-265 requires written or electronic consent for promotional SMS and bans promotional calls and notifications over mobile networks from 18:00 to 09:00. These rules do not name messengers: whether the requirement extends to promotional messages on Telegram, WhatsApp or Instagram is a question of interpretation — put it to a lawyer; the safe practice is to collect consent for them too. See Consent and anti-spam for the detail. The phone numbers, names and purchase history in a segment are personal data, and their processing is governed by the “On Personal Data” law (ZRU-547); which data must stay inside the country is explained in Personal data localisation. Zukko.AI campaigns are designed for customers who already talk to you on these channels, and unsubscribe is built in: the recipient opts out with a button or a command, and the system excludes them from later sends. That is compliance support, not a legal guarantee.

What the business gets

• Reach where people read — Telegram and WhatsApp, not SMS alone.
• A segment instead of a blind list — the message follows CRM data rather than going to everyone.
• One send for both messengers — no separate gateways or manual exports.
• Replies are not lost — the customer’s response arrives in the shared inbox.
• Analytics right through to the reply — you can see who received, read and wrote back.

Channels, scheduling and campaign analytics are on the Campaigns page.