14:35Maria Wendt · Tutorial
How I Got 31,403 Email Addresses In 30 Days
A ManyChat comment-automation turned Instagram carousels into a free, near-90%-converting email funnel — with a blunt caveat about who should ignore it.
September 16th 2024The argument in one line.
A single low-cost automation tool, configured once around comment and DM triggers, can replace the manual sales-and-marketing labor a growing digital-products business used to require a team to do.
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
- You sell a digital product or course and are still manually replying to comments or DMs to close sales.
- You want to see an unblurred, real automation setup built in ManyChat rather than a vague pitch for 'using AI'.
- You're deciding whether marketing automation is worth building before you can afford a team or virtual assistants.
SKIP IF…
- You don't sell through Instagram comments, story replies, or DMs — the funnels shown are trigger-specific to that channel.
- You want a step-by-step ManyChat build tutorial — this is a walkthrough of an existing setup, not a build-along.
The full version, fast.
The video walks through ManyChat, a $29/month chat-automation tool, as the engine behind a digital-products business collecting roughly $650,000 in cash per month. Two funnel types are shown: a simple version (a comment or DM trigger fires an automatic reply with a checkout link) that alone produced $150,000-$200,000/month in the business's first year, and a more complex version that also captures the visitor's email into a marketing platform, waits an interval, then pitches a paid product after a free lead magnet. One such funnel has run 18,000 contacts through it. The core lesson: automations are largely the same template with the wording swapped, set up once, and left running continuously.
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00:00 – 02:07
01 · The hook: one $29 tool, a $13M business
Cold open contrasts the manual, do-it-all-yourself era with a single low-cost automation tool, followed by a channel introduction and subscribe ask.
02:08 – 03:22
02 · What the tool does and the headline numbers
Names ManyChat, states it handles ads, automatic sales, checkout traffic, and organic marketing, and gives the ~$650,000/month cash-collected figure.
03:23 – 05:09
03 · Inside the dashboard: a simple comment-to-checkout funnel
Screen recording of the ManyChat automations list, then a walkthrough of a simple flash-sale funnel: a comment or story reply triggers a DM with a checkout link.
05:10 – 07:16
04 · From simple funnels to $650K/month
Shows more simple trigger-to-link automations, states the simple version alone produced $150K-$200K/month in year one, and contrasts it with the current $650K/month scale.
07:17 – 10:05
05 · The complex funnel: email capture, ActiveCampaign, and timing tests
Walks through a multi-step funnel that captures an email into ActiveCampaign before pitching a paid product, covers the 18,000-contact volume on one funnel, the 30-minute-to-3-minute wait-time test, and closes with a next-video CTA.
Lines worth screenshotting.
- A $29/month ManyChat setup is described as running close to $650,000 in cash collected per month for one digital-products business.
- The simplest possible funnel — a comment or DM trigger firing an automatic reply with a checkout link — reportedly produced $150,000-$200,000/month on its own in the business's first year.
- A single company website is credited with $30,000-$45,000/month on its own, spiking to as much as $150,000 in some months.
- One email-capture funnel has processed 18,000 unique contacts.
- Shortening the wait between delivering a free lead magnet and pitching the paid product from 30 minutes to 3 minutes reportedly improved results enough to roll out across all funnels.
- Automation triggers can fire from a comment, a story reply, a DM, or even an ad click — not just one channel.
- New automations are largely the same handful of templates with the wording swapped rather than built from scratch each time.
- An automatically captured email is described as being pushed straight into an email marketing platform's existing nurture sequence, with no manual step in between.
One low-cost automation replaced a team's worth of manual sales work.
WHAT TO LEARN
The lesson isn't ManyChat specifically — it's that a single trigger-based automation, built once, can run comment-to-sale and comment-to-email-list funnels around the clock without a person operating them.
- Start with the simplest possible funnel — one trigger, one automated reply, one link to checkout — before building anything more complex; it's reportedly enough to produce five to six figures a month on its own.
- A funnel that also captures the visitor's email earns twice: it can pitch a paid product immediately and still nurture the ones who don't buy through an ongoing email sequence.
- Automatically pushing captured emails into an email platform's existing sequence removes the manual step that usually delays follow-up by hours or days.
- Test how long you wait between delivering a free item and pitching the paid one — a shorter wait (minutes, not half an hour) can outperform a longer one.
- New funnels don't need to be built from zero — treat a working funnel as a template and swap the trigger keyword and offer rather than redesigning the flow.
- A trigger doesn't have to be a comment — story replies, DMs, and even ad clicks can all kick off the same kind of automation.
Terms worth knowing.
- ManyChat
- A chat-automation platform that lets a business auto-reply to Instagram comments, story replies, and DMs, and route people into multi-step funnels.
- ActiveCampaign
- An email marketing platform used to hold contact lists and run automated email sequences after someone joins the list.
- Automation / flow
- A set of connected steps — a trigger, a reply, a wait, a follow-up — that runs automatically every time someone takes a qualifying action, without a person operating it.
- Cash collected
- Total money actually received from customers in a period, as opposed to revenue that includes unpaid installments or refunded amounts.
- Keyword trigger
- A specific word a follower comments or messages that automatically starts a chosen automation, letting one post serve multiple offers based on which word is used.
Things they pointed at.
02:37toolManyChat
08:13toolActiveCampaign
Lines you could clip.
03:53
“I get around 200 to 300 sales per day, which is nuts.”
04:11
“It's not because I'm a genius, it's because I have this software that does all the work for me.”
02:45
“This software for what we pay versus what we make is unbelievable.”
Word for word.
Read-along
Don't just watch it. Burn it in.
See every word as it's spoken — crank it to 2× and still catch all of it. The same dual-channel trick behind Amazon's Kindle + Audible.
00:00If you would have told me a few years ago that there was gonna be one AI software that only cost $29 a month that would automatically help me with so much, and it would help me make millions of dollars, I genuinely would not have believed you, and I would have been insanely curious.
00:20Because mind you, a few years ago, I was doing everything that this little piece of software that I'm gonna show you does.
00:27I was doing it all manually. I was doing it all by myself. And so in the last and I was talking about this with a friend of mine.
00:35There's never been a better time to get started trying to sell digital products, trying to make money online. It's never been easier for beginners because so much of it is able to automate versus before you would have to either do it yourself, which is virtually impossible unless you're working, like, fourteen hour days, which is what we all used to do, or you would pay people to do it.
00:57But when you're just getting started, you don't really have the resources to pay people to do it. So we are living in beautiful, beautiful times.
01:04I'm so excited to show this to you. I'm so excited to teach you this. In case you don't know me, my name is Maria Wendt.
01:10I've made $13,000,000 selling digital products, and I make free YouTube videos every single day showing you guys what's working right now, what new people are finding really helpful.
01:20And you guys have been loving the videos. I just started making these YouTube videos really recently, and I'm almost at a 100,000 subscribers. So be sure to subscribe so you don't miss it.
01:28Help me hit my goal of a 100 k. We're so close. I'm grateful that you this channel is growing as fast as it is because what that tells me is the videos that I make are actually helping you.
01:40I see comments every single day from you guys just watching the videos that I make, implementing them, and seeing results, literally making money, changing your life from these free videos. So super grateful for that. Be sure to hit subscribe if you aren't already subscribed to me.
01:53Like I said, I make free videos every single day, so there's a lot of really good stuff that, um, is both already on the channel for you to binge watch, but coming up is some really cool stuff that we've got planned. So hit that subscribe button, and we'll go into the video. So this AI assistant that I pay $30 a month for helps me with my ads, helps me make automatic sales, gets traffic to my checkout pages, and helps me with my organic marketing.
02:23And it's one software that you set up once, and it does all of this.
02:29And so the software, you may have heard of it, but you probably don't use it the way I use it. It's called ManyChat. It's an incredible software.
02:38I wanna show you how it works and how I use it and how it helps make me, um, right now, we're right around $650,000 in cash collected every single month, which is an average of around $20,000 every single day we're making.
02:51So it's significant. This software for what we pay versus what we make is unbelievable.
02:57And, again, like I said, I used to have to either do this myself or in some cases pay, like, a virtual assistant to do some of the stuff that this AI thing does for free, and it's one of the most important pieces of in fact, probably the most important piece of software in my business. Um, it's it's crazy. So what I'm gonna do here is I wanna show you how it works.
03:16Um, you may have already seen it before, but I wanna I wanna show you. Okay.
03:23So let me pull this up. So this is ManyChat. Now, one of the most important things that you'll see here right away is how many funnels that I have set up.
03:32So these are all my automations. These things I'm gonna show you them individually. Not all of them, but like the gist.
03:38These things are how I make so much money.
03:45So I have all of these running around the clock. This is where the AI comes in. This is where the software comes in.
03:50This happens around the clock, twenty four seven. So when I wake up, I genuinely have an inbox full of sales.
03:59When I go play with my daughter on the beach, I come home and check my email, I have sales. I get around 200 to 300 sales per day, which is nuts. That's so many sales.
04:09Um, and so it's not because I'm a genius, it's because I have this software that does all the work for me.
04:17So let me show you kind of how it works. I'm gonna show you a simple one, and I'm gonna show you a more complicated one. So, um, here's a simple one, um, and we'll show you a couple.
04:27This one was for a flash sale that we did. Um, people comment a specific keyword, so they'll comment or they'll reply to my story.
04:34This basically triggers the AI. And if you I'm just gonna edit this really quickly. You can make this trigger all kinds of things.
04:42So it can be Instagram, it can be message, um, it can be, um, really just, like, tons of different things, and these are just three.
04:51There's, like, tons of they can do text messages, you can do WhatsApp, like, there's so many different triggers. This one is just set up to be Instagram, but there's so many different, um, ways. Like, we can do it where it's, like, when someone clicks an ad, they get a message, for example.
05:05So the possibilities of what you can automate are pretty, um, amazing. And so basically then, they'll get this message, and then it'll take them to here, I'm gonna go out of edit mode.
05:18Go back to preview. So basically, they'll get this message, and then they click shop now, and it takes them to, um, my website, where they can buy from me.
05:29I make, just from this website alone, um, I make around 30,000 to 45,000, sometimes as much as a $150,000 per month just from my website.
05:38That's not even, like, my individual checkout pages as well. So let me show you another one so you can kinda get how this works.
05:46Um, we'll do batch. These are the simple ones.
05:51I'm gonna show you actually, no, this one's a little bit more complicated. I wanna show you one more simple one really quick. Um, do the IP.
05:58So these are the more simple ones. Oh my god. Hold on.
06:03Me pull it up. I think it was way less, actually.
06:08Let me just show you this one. These are what a simple one looks like. Okay?
06:12Where it's this one's disabled, but I want you to get the gist of what a simple one looks like, where they comment and they get immediately taken to a link. Okay? Those are the more simple ones.
06:23Um, here's an example of another simple one. There's a trigger, they get taken to a link.
06:30And this one here, just to kinda show you, it's just straight to a checkout page. K?
06:34That's that's as simple as it gets. I want you to see in this, just so you know, before I really dove even deeper into ManyChat, for the first, like, year, this was how I set up all of my automations, and I was making probably, like, a 150 to $200,000 a month from this.
06:55Very, very simple. Now I'm making, like, $650,000 a month.
07:00It's more complicated, so it's worth it. But if you are at zero, you can start with this simple, very, very, very, very, very simple AI setup.
07:11In fact, I would recommend it. But I don't get keep, so let me show you the more complicated ones too so you can see what that looks like. So let's do robot.
07:21Um, and by the way, you see here part of why I make so much money is the sheer amount of funnels that I have. I have so many.
07:28So this one's a little bit more complicated. Let's zoom in and look at this. Okay?
07:31Essentially, when we take a step back, this funnel is collecting email addresses, which I will then turn around and monetize as well.
07:41I make a ton of money from my email list, and then we pitch a paid product. So this funnel, more complicated because it does two things.
07:51The other one just pitches the checkout page. This one collects an email address and pitches a checkout page, so it's different.
08:00So you can see here, 18,000 people have gone through this. Um, and then right here, this is where we collect the email address. It's actually automatically added to our email marketing software, which is ActiveCampaign.
08:13So it again, this is for the AI. It's just freaking nuts because it will then automatically add that email address, which will then automatically be part of a sequence so that when I send a marketing email, they get it automatically.
08:29I don't do any of this. And that's why I say, like, you set this up once, and it markets and makes sales over and over and over and over and over again.
08:40Uh, it's it's just crazy to me. So, um, basically, then they get the freebie.
08:46So this is the funnel. They they get the freebie after they give me their email address, and then we wait thirty minutes, and then we pitch the paid product.
08:57So free product, wait thirty minutes, pitch the paid product. Now we're experimenting with actually dropping this down to waiting three minutes, and it's actually doing even better.
09:07So I think that we're gonna go back into all of our funnels and change it from thirty minutes to three minutes just so you again, this is where I'm constantly experimenting.
09:17I'm constantly testing new things so that you have the best information, the best marketing stuff for your digital products, which is why it's important to subscribe, I might add, because things get updated, things get improved, we run new tests. It's important for you to stay on top of all of it so you're getting the best information.
09:36So basically then, they would get the the freebie, and then they would be taken to this checkout page. Mind you, this is all happening automatically, and the crazy thing is if we go back to all of my automations, these are basically duplicated with a few words changed out.
09:53So these aren't that hard to build at all. Um, but if you wanna dive even deeper into this AI software ManyChat, which I highly recommend that you do, watch this video next. I'll see you there.
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
The pitch is a single subscription doing the work a team used to: one comment, DM, or story reply triggers a chain that replies, captures an email, waits, and pitches a paid product — all before the business owner wakes up.
Named ideas worth stealing.
04:05model
Simple comment-to-checkout funnel
- Trigger: comment, story reply, or DM
- Automatic reply with a checkout link
- Checkout page
The most basic automation shown: one trigger, one automated reply, one link straight to a sales page.
Steal forA quick flash-sale or launch promo with no build time
07:17model
Email-capture-then-pitch funnel
- Trigger: comment, story reply, or DM
- Free lead magnet delivered automatically
- Email pushed into ActiveCampaign
- Wait interval (tested 30 min down to 3 min)
- Paid product pitch
The more complex, higher-earning version: it builds the email list at the same time it makes the sale.
Steal forEvergreen lead generation for any digital product, not just launches
How they asked for the click.
VERBAL ASK
09:57next-video
“if you wanna dive even deeper into this AI software ManyChat, which I highly recommend that you do, watch this video next”
Soft, single-line CTA at the very end pointing to a follow-up ManyChat tutorial video rather than a hard sales pitch.
FROM THE DESCRIPTION
PRIMARY CTAWhere the creator wants you to go next.
OTHER LINKSAlso linked in the description.
Visual structure at a glance.
