A Direct Message is one of the trigger types for launching automation in Instagram. It responds when a user sends a message to your account via Instagram Direct (private messages). This trigger allows you to start an automation as soon as the user writes to your Instagram account.
You can choose different sensitivity levels for this trigger — from reacting to any message to responding only to a specific keyword.
👉 Learn more about bot sensitivity settings for keywords.
This trigger method is the most stable, because due to Instagram’s limitations, other trigger types can sometimes cause issues.
For example:
When a user sends a Direct Message immediately, they’re less likely to end up in the Message Requests folder, compared to when they leave a comment under a post. If the user ends up in Requests, the bot won’t be able to reply.
When using certain ad types to promote Instagram posts, user comments may not be passed to the bot, so it can’t respond. In these cases, we recommend encouraging users to send a keyword via Direct Message to avoid losing potential clients.
A Direct Message trigger works well when combined with Welcome Buttons. In this setup, if the user opens your Direct messages for the first time, they’ll see preset buttons — clicking one of them will launch the automation linked to that button.
👉 Learn more about Welcome Buttons.
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