Playbooks
Cross-Sell in a DM: A Suggestion, Never a Squeeze
The line is simple once you can see it. A suggestion that makes the answer more useful is fine. A pitch bolted onto a reply nobody asked for is not, and it shows.
6 min read
Writing
What we learned building this.
Notes on Instagram’s API, the replies a tool should refuse to send, and the parts of automation that are easy to get wrong. Written by the people who ship it.
Lead generation
We Have No CRM Integration. Here Is the CSV Story Instead
No HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive or Zoho sync exists. Leads leave as a CSV file. What that handoff genuinely does for you, and where it will cost you time.
5 min read
Lead generation
Course Sales in the DMs: One Reply Has to Do the Closing
The objection arrives, you get one guaranteed turn, and the cart deadline reminder cannot be sent. What that means for how a course sales reply is written.
5 min read
Lead generation
Why Instagram DM Open Rates Are So High, and What That Hides
The number is real and it is also a selection effect. Four reasons DMs get opened, and the reason the figure stops being useful the moment you try to scale it.
4 min read
Playbooks
What Content Agencies Owe the Inbox Their Reels Fill
You ship the client a reel, it does numbers, and their comment section fills with questions nobody answers. The deliverable was never just the video.
5 min read
Playbooks
Choosing a Trigger Word People Will Actually Type
The word decides whether the automation fires at all. What makes one work, the four ways they fail, and why you should harvest rather than invent.
4 min read
Compliance
Running Instagram Automation Makes You a Data Controller
The privacy duties that land on the business running the automation, not the vendor: notice, purpose, retention, who on your team can read a DM, and requests.
5 min read
Comparison
AI vs Manual Instagram DMs: Where Each One Actually Holds Up
Generated replies are good at some messages and quietly bad at others. Here is the line between them, and what a tool should do when it lands on the wrong side.
5 min read
Playbooks
Cleaning Services on Instagram: Never Quote in a DM
Every cleaning enquiry is the same six words, and they have no answer without seeing the flat. Collect three facts, refuse the number, and send a human to look.
6 min read
Playbooks
You Cannot See Churn in an Instagram Inbox. You Can See This
A DM thread contains no subscription data, so churn scoring here is fiction. What an inbox does hold is four signals worth reading by eye, once a week, for twenty minutes.
5 min read
Compliance
Chiropractor Instagram DMs: Never Automate a Symptom
A chiropractic inbox fills up with strangers describing their own pain. That is a clinical question wearing an enquiry's clothes, and a template must not answer it.
6 min read
Tutorial
Car Dealers: The Actual Build Sheet for Your First Week
Three automations, the exact fields to fill, the keyword lists worth stealing, and what to change after you have read a fortnight of what the gate blocked.
6 min read
Playbooks
Brand Partnership DMs: Automate the Filter, Not the Deal
A creator inbox full of collab pitches is mostly barter, some of it is phishing, and a little of it is money. Only the first two are safe to answer automatically.
5 min read
Product
Booking Confirmations: We Have No Diary to Confirm From
A confirmation is something a booking system emits when a record exists. There is no record here, so the only honest version is an acknowledgement that says so.
5 min read
Tutorial
The Author's Launch Automation, Built Three Weeks Early
A dated build sheet for a book launch: what to set up on a backlist post, what changes the week the book lands, and the teardown checklist for the week after.
5 min read
Playbooks
Bakery DMs: Nothing Is In Stock Until Someone Looks
A bakery sells things that were made this morning and will be gone by four. That single fact decides which questions an automation may answer and which one it must refuse.
5 min read
Playbooks
Architect DMs: Most of Your Inbox Is Not a Project
For a sole practitioner the scarce thing is hours, not enquiries. So the automation worth building is the one that says no gracefully and fast.
5 min read
Product
Appointment Reminders Are the One Thing We Cannot Send
Instagram DM automation cannot remind anyone of anything. Here is exactly why the platform makes it impossible, and what to put in the first message instead.
5 min read
Lead generation
App Installs From Instagram DMs, With No Way to Prove It
You can send a store link in a private reply. What you cannot do is attribute a single install to it, and pretending otherwise is how app teams waste a quarter.
5 min read
Compliance
What the Instagram Graph API Actually Lets a Tool Do
A non-engineer guide to the permission map every compliant vendor shares: what can be sent, to whom, inside which clock, and what no approval will ever allow.
5 min read
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