From a signed client to a live automation

Ask the client which type their Instagram account is. inDM connects through Instagram's own login, and that works for Business and Creator accounts. A personal account has to switch first.

The switch is free and takes about two minutes. How to switch to a professional account shows where it lives in Instagram's settings. One thing the client should know before they do it: a professional account cannot be private, so a private account becomes public when it switches.

Before anything is connected, get five answers from the client. Everything you write in inDM sends exactly as written, so these answers become the messages.

• The offer. What does a follower receive: a price list, a guide, a booking link, a discount?
• The link. Where does it go, and does that page work well on a phone?
• The tone. How does the client write to followers, in a sentence or two they would sign?
• The language. Which language does the client's audience write in?
• The public reply. What does the reply under the comment say, for example "Sent, check your DMs"?

In inDM, open Settings, then Connected accounts, and press Send a connect link. Type the client's Instagram handle, create the link, and copy it before you close the dialog, because inDM shows each link once. Send it by email, WhatsApp or a DM. The page the client opens shows your workspace name, so check that it reads as the name the client knows you by.

Tell the client what they will see, so the link does not arrive as a surprise:

• A page that names your workspace and their account, and says what connecting allows.
• Instagram's own login screen, where they log in with their own password. Nothing they type reaches you or inDM.
• Instagram's own approval screen, then a page that says the account is connected.

The client does not share a password with you and does not need an inDM account. The link is for one handle, works once, and expires after 7 days. Connect a client's Instagram without the password shows every screen, on both sides.

Clients usually connect on their phone while you are doing something else, and inDM sends no email when it happens. Open Settings, then Connected accounts: the account sits in the list as connected, and the link has left Links waiting to be used. Switch to the account from the top bar to work on it.

Then check the language. Everything you write sends exactly as written, in any language. The few messages inDM writes itself, the follow ask and the email ask and their buttons, follow one setting for the whole workspace. It is Language for system replies, under Settings, then General. Set it to the language of this client's audience. When your clients' audiences write in different languages, Growth and up lets you rewrite those asks in your own words in each automation.

If you have already run a similar campaign for another client, switch to the new client's account, open Templates, and start your saved template there. Only the post and the link change. Saved templates are part of Growth and the agency plans.

If this is your first campaign of its type, build it by hand. Pick the post the client's audience already comments on, the one where people ask for the price or the link, and press Automate this. The comment-to-DM setup guide walks through the rest. When the client's first campaign is a post that is not published yet, Growth can make the automation wait for the next post.

The keyword is the one word followers type to get the link, so it has to be easy to say in a video and easy to type on a phone. In inDM, the automation fires on any word in a comment that starts with the keyword, so check that no common word begins with it. How to choose a DM keyword has the full checks.

Ask the client to say the keyword aloud once. A word the client hesitates over is a word followers will mistype.

Before the client announces anything, comment the keyword on the post from another Instagram account, such as your agency's own account or a colleague's. The automation skips comments from the connected account itself, so a test from the client's own account looks as if nothing happened.

Check three things: the DM arrives with the right words, the link opens the right page on a phone, and the public reply appears under the comment after the DM. Then set the automation live.

Decide with the client what you will show them and how often. On Growth and up, link analytics show who clicked each link and the country they clicked from, so a report can say which link was opened and where from.

Two limits shape the report. inDM shows one account at a time, so a report that covers several clients is yours to put together. And clients do not log in to inDM, so the report reaches them as something you send.

Settle this at the start, because every client eventually asks. There are two ways, and neither needs the other side's help.

• The client removes access. In Instagram's settings, under Apps and websites, the client can remove inDM at any time. inDM is not told when this happens, so you find out when the account's automations stop sending.
• You disconnect the account. In inDM's Settings, disconnecting an account stops every automation on it and removes inDM's access. The account itself and every message already sent are untouched, and the account can be reconnected later.

Export the account's contacts as a CSV file before you disconnect. There is no button that hands an account's automations over to another workspace, so when a client moves to another agency, ask support. What an agency client handover looks like covers the whole exit.