The argument in one line.
Most Instagram DM funnels are bleeding 10-50% of conversions on five small variables that split-test in a week — inbox routing, copy case, email-vs-name order, message length, and follow-up timing.
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
- You are already using ManyChat or a DM automation tool and want to squeeze more conversions from your existing automations.
- You post consistently on Instagram and get comments or story replies but your DM funnel leaks before people reach the offer.
- You manage Instagram accounts for clients and need a testable playbook backed by real split-test data across B2B and B2C.
SKIP IF…
- You have not set up any Instagram DM automation yet — you need the foundational ManyChat setup first.
- You are focused on platforms other than Instagram; the inbox-routing and interest-graph arguments are Instagram-specific.
The full version, fast.
Instagram's shift from social to interest graph means most posts now reach non-followers first, which also means most automated DMs land in a message-request folder that people check once a month. The fix is one phrase: 'follow me, then comment.' From there, seven more tested variables stack on top: lowercase copy boosts funnel completion by 10%, asking for email before first name outperforms the reverse, keeping the first message under four sentences cuts friction, two follow-up windows (3 min and 22 hr) recover 10-30% of dropouts, ending every message in a question beats telling people what to do, sending the freebie to email-refusers protects brand reputation and generates later sales, and putting a CTA in every post outperforms the old one-in-three rule.
Free for members
Chat with this breakdown — free.
Sign in and you get 23 free chat messages on us — ask for the hook, quote a framework, find the exact transcript moment, generate a markdown action plan. Bring your own key when you want unlimited.
Create a free account →Where the time goes.
00:00 – 00:31
01 · Cold open + credential stack
50M messages, 100K automations, $100M in DM sales. Positions the eight tactics as the real playbook nobody else has shared.
00:31 – 02:36
02 · Tactic 1: Follow me then comment
Non-followers' DMs land in message requests, not the main inbox. One phrase in the CTA moves the DM to where leads actually look — and adds them as followers who see future posts.
02:36 – 04:08
03 · Tactic 2: Lowercase copy
Switching to lowercase boosted funnel completion by 10% across dozens of accounts. Authenticity signal in an AI-saturated feed.
04:08 – 05:33
04 · Tactic 3: Email before first name
2025 flip — asking for email first (not name) outperformed across B2B, B2C, high and low ticket. Feels more logical to the user and gets higher conversion.
05:33 – 08:26
05 · Tactic 4: Keep the first message short
Four sentences max in the first DM. Read it aloud — if longer than 10 seconds, cut in half. Every extra word is friction.
08:26 – 10:28
06 · Tactic 5: Follow-up timing windows
B2B: 3-minute + 22-hour. B2C: 22-hour only. Recovers 10-30% of dropped conversations. Every other interval tested performed worse.
10:28 – 11:22
07 · Tactic 6: End in a question
Replace statements with questions in every follow-up. A lone question mark sometimes outperforms all other copy tested against it.
11:22 – 12:53
08 · Tactic 7: Send the freebie without the email
If someone refuses to give their email, send the promised freebie anyway. They return and buy later because you respected their boundary.
12:53 – 14:38
09 · Tactic 8: CTA in every post
Instagram is now interest-graph — most viewers are non-followers. The old one-CTA-in-three rule was built for a follower-first feed. Every post now needs an entry point.
14:38 – 15:19
10 · Wrap + service CTA
Summary of all eight tactics. Soft pitch for done-for-you services targeting 7-10 figure businesses.
Lines worth screenshotting.
- 10 to 50% of people who comment on your post are not following you, so your automated DM goes to message requests — a folder most people check once a month.
- Adding 'follow me, then comment' to your CTA moves your DM from message requests to the main inbox, and delivers up to 50% higher open rates.
- Lowercase copy boosted funnel completion by 10% across dozens of accounts — the informal style signals a real human, not a bot.
- Asking for email before first name outperformed the reverse in 2025 across B2B, B2C, high-ticket, and low-ticket offers.
- The best rule for first DM length: read it aloud, and if it takes longer than 10 seconds, cut it in half.
- A 3-minute follow-up catches people who got distracted but are still on their phone. A 22-hour follow-up catches people who forgot completely.
- A lone question mark in a follow-up message sometimes outperforms every other copy variant tested against it.
- Sending the freebie to people who refuse to give their email protects brand reputation and results in a measurable share of later purchases.
- Instagram moved from social graph to interest graph, meaning every post now reaches more non-followers than followers — the one-CTA-in-three-posts rule no longer fits the platform.
- In an interest graph, every post is an acquisition opportunity. A PS line at the end of any caption can turn casual viewers into DM leads without changing the main content.
- B2B audiences tolerate both a 3-minute and 22-hour follow-up. B2C audiences are allergic to feeling chased — the 22-hour follow-up alone is the safer play.
- Testing a split requires at least 100 people to open and take action or not before you declare a winner.
Eight variables that decide how many DM leads convert.
WHAT TO LEARN
Instagram DM funnels leak at predictable points — and each one is fixable with a single, testable change.
- 10 to 50% of people who comment on a post are not following the account, so their automated DM lands in message requests — a folder most users never check. Adding 'follow me, then comment' to the CTA routes the DM to the main inbox and delivers up to 50% higher open rates.
- Lowercase copy boosted funnel completion by 10% across dozens of tested accounts because it signals a human sender in a feed where AI-generated messages are increasingly common.
- Asking for email before first name now outperforms the reverse — the sequence 'what email should I send this to?' feels more logical to the user than being asked for a name before the transaction context is established.
- The first message in a DM funnel should be readable aloud in under 10 seconds. Every additional word beyond that is friction that reduces the share of people who continue into the conversation.
- Two follow-up timing windows — 3 minutes and 22 hours — recover 10 to 30% of conversations that stalled. For B2C audiences, only the 22-hour window is appropriate; B2B audiences tolerate both.
- Ending follow-up messages with a question consistently outperforms statements that tell the user what to do. A lone question mark sometimes outperforms all other copy variants in the test.
- Sending the promised freebie to users who decline to give their email generates goodwill that converts to purchases later. The cost of the concession is low; the brand equity returned is measurable.
- Instagram's algorithmic shift toward interest-based distribution means most viewers of any post are non-followers. Including a comment-to-DM CTA in every post captures conversion opportunities that the old one-in-three rule missed entirely.
Terms worth knowing.
- ManyChat
- A marketing automation platform that connects to Instagram (and other channels) to send automated DM sequences triggered by comments, story replies, or keywords.
- Message requests
- A secondary Instagram inbox that receives DMs from accounts the recipient does not follow. It is separate from the main inbox and largely ignored by most users.
- Interest graph
- A content distribution model where the platform serves posts to users based on their interests rather than who they follow, meaning any post can reach a large share of non-followers.
- Social graph
- The older distribution model where posts were primarily shown to existing followers — the model Instagram used before its algorithmic shift toward interest-based feeds.
- Funnel completion
- The rate at which users who enter a DM automation sequence reach the final step, such as clicking a sales page link or submitting contact information.
- B2B / B2C
- Business-to-business (selling to companies) vs. business-to-consumer (selling to individuals). Relevant here because they respond differently to follow-up frequency and tone.
Things they pointed at.
Lines you could clip.
01:10
“That's where leads go to die.”
06:48
“Every extra word is going to be friction.”
10:08
“Sometimes a simple question mark actually outperforms all other copy that we test against it.”
12:13
“Instagram's shift from social graph to interest graph completely changed the math on call to actions.”
14:38
“If you're posting consistently but you're still not seeing revenue, then your content is not the problem. You just need to convert the attention that you're already getting inside of a way better conversion vehicle.”
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.
metaphoranalogy
00:00I sent 50,000,000 Instagram messages last year. Nobody knows what I'm doing in the DMs until today.
00:06My team and I have built over a 100,000 automations and every dollar of the $100,000,000 generated in sales went through automated DMs.
00:14Now many people have shared their ManyChat tutorials, but nobody's ever shown you what generating a $100,000,000 in the DMs actually looks like until now. So in this video, I'm breaking down the eight tactics we're using to get the best results with ManyChat in 2026 from beginner to advanced.
00:32Now if you know what ManyChat is and you're already posting on Instagram, then this is for you. And the first one alone impacted conversions more than anything else that we have tested in the last twelve months. The first thing that you need to understand is that one small tweak to your call to action can give you 40% better conversions without changing anything else about your content.
00:54In early twenty twenty five, we started testing follow me then comment a word as a call to action on posts, and the results were immediate. We saw huge follower growth, way more people opening messages, and more sales and leads because of Now the reason this works is simple, but most people completely miss it. 10 to 50% of people who comment on your post just aren't following you yet, so that means that your automated DM lands in their message request folder on Instagram, which is .
01:23So most people check this hidden inbox once a month if ever, and the fix is just one phrase, follow me, then comment. Once they follow first, your DM lands in their main inbox, and we've seen up to 50% higher open rates and responses just from that one change.
01:40And the bonus is that every person who follows you now to get your offer stays a follower, so they're going to see your next post and become a customer way faster. So a sixty second way that you can start to test this out is go into your most recent post with a call to action in it saying comment whatever and just edit the caption to say, follow me then comment the word and track your opening click rate inside of ManyChat for the next seven days compared to your previous posts.
02:06Most people think this one formatting change looks unprofessional, but we saw boost funnel completion by 10% across dozens of accounts. People finish your DM funnels way more when messages feel like they're coming from a real human.
02:19So we tested this across dozens of accounts over the last twelve months, and texting in lowercase consistently outperformed traditional capitalization by over 10%.
02:30Now that means that the number of people who actually entered the DMs and got to the end of the conversation went up by 10%. Think about how you actually text your friends.
02:38You don't perfectly capitalize every single sentence, and instead, you'll write a little bit more off the cuff. So even if you're b to b or b to c or a big enterprise brand, when we type in lowercase, it does present this feeling of more authenticity, especially in the world of AI where people wanna feel more connection, and lowercase is a low effort but high value way for you to do that as a brand.
03:02Now if you're worried that lowercase is not gonna match your brand, then you can test this by using a persona. So you could do something like, hey. It's Mark from so and so team to see if you get better results.
03:13So you could just set up two identical automations and split test it inside of ManyChat to see which one is gonna perform the best. And we look for getting at least a 100 people to open a message and then take action or not to decide which split test actually won. We built the playbook that everyone copied for collecting emails through the DMs, but in 2025, we changed our own advice and the results were immediate.
03:35Now prior to 2025, we would follow this funnel framework where somebody comes into the DMs and we confirm that they wanna get the thing that we promised them, such as a free download. Then we would ask them for their first name, and then we would ask them for their email, and then we would give them whatever we promised and continue the conversation into some kind of upsell or nurturing conversation.
03:56Now every week, our team runs experiments and split tests to know what's actually performing the best even if it completely goes against the data that we've seen performing well in the past few months. And so every single week for years, we were testing the order of this funnel. And up until 2025, it was the first message, then first name, then email, and then the offer that performed the best.
04:18But in 2025, that flipped, and we actually found that we were starting to get way better results when we asked for email and then first name and then the offer. So we tested this across b to b and b to c accounts. We tested it across high ticket and low ticket offers, warm and colder audiences.
04:34And so asking for the email first outperformed the first name almost every single time, and now that's our playbook. And I believe that the strongest reason why is because, first of all, user consumer behavior changed a little bit as more and more people were asking for information in the DMs. And so it seemed most logical to the user that we would ask for their email first because the messaging would flow as, hey.
04:57Uh, do you still wanna get this offer? Okay. Great.
04:59What email should we send it to? So that got us the highest conversion rate. And then from there, we would then ask them for their name on the back end of that because they're more likely to share it now.
05:09They're already two steps deep into the process. Right? It allows us to better organize our leads so we can better serve them and personalize those emails.
05:16So for all those reasons, we then ask, just so I don't mix you up with somebody else, what is your first name? And then from there, we then go into the rest of the funnel. So first message, ask for the email, ask for their first name, and then move into the next step is what's currently performing the best for us now.
05:33And what you'll wanna do to implement that is go into your highest traffic automation, reverse that order, and test it against what you used to do for at least a week to see what performs better. The number one thing killing most people's first DM conversions isn't their offer or their funnel. It's the word count of their message.
05:51Now in your first message, after somebody replies to a story or comments a specific word on a post, you must keep this to four short sentences maximum. You wanna use emojis strategically to make your copy more digestible, not just for the sake of, like, throwing them in there.
06:07Too many emojis feels a little bit spammy AI generated, but just the right touch can feel most aligned. And sometimes for some of you, using any emojis is gonna be the better move.
06:17So, ultimately, you wanna go off of what you typically do in your post captions on social media as a starting point. Now the best rule that I can give you for keeping your copy short is that after you write out a first draft of what you wanna say in that first Centimeters that you're gonna send to people, you now go through and you go, okay.
06:33This is a paragraph. How can it become a sentence? This is a sentence.
06:36How can it become a word or get merged into another sentence? And then if I have a complex word, how can I simplify it down to a third grade reading level? Every extra word is going to be friction and something that people might potentially skim past or get distracted by.
06:51And so it's really important to keep the message as short and direct as possible so that as many people as possible feel like they understood your message and click to continue the conversation and become a lead. So pull up your highest performing automation right now. Read the first message out loud.
07:07And if it takes longer than ten seconds to read, then cut it in half. And then you can keep cutting it in half until that happens. And then you can test that version against your original over the next seven days.
07:18The reason half of your audience dropped off before you even finished setting up an automation isn't that they were lost. They just needed a follow-up at the right moment. Now for b to b audiences, we use three minute and twenty two hour later follow ups because they're a little bit more tolerant to follow-up messages.
07:35Right? They've built sales sequences and things before, and sometimes they really do just need that nudge. It's a lot less emotional and personal for them if they get follow-up messages from you.
07:44Now from b to c, they are a lot more allergic to salesy messages. And so you only wanna do the twenty two hour follow-up just so that you're not feeling pushy if they dropped off and then you message them three minutes later and you're like, ah, I don't wanna do this anymore. Right?
07:56I didn't even know you could do that. You could message me, you know, even more times. Um, and so that is a feeling that we don't wanna have happen.
08:03Whereas with b to b, they expect it. And in fact, you might be considered not a good business if they do not receive follow-up from you. So they're like, okay.
08:11They're clearly not on it when it comes to their sales process, but your consumers are not going appreciate that. So when someone starts your automation but doesn't finish, that's when you're sending the follow-up. And then you can typically get another 10 to up to 30% of people back into the conversation.
08:28And we have tested every window imaginable from a couple of seconds, five minutes, an hour, six hours, forty eight hours, so on and so forth. And so these two windows of time, the three minute follow-up and the twenty two hour work the best. Now the three minute follow-up, the reason why it works is because you're catching people who got distracted but are still likely on their phones or scrolling or maybe in another DM conversation.
08:50The twenty two hour follow-up catches people who totally forgot. They got distracted by something deeper like a call or their kid was crying or something of that nature. And so together being used for b two b, they recover revenue that would have been completely lost.
09:05And on the other hand, for your b two c people, the twenty two hour later is a nice nudge, and it does bring people back in. So to implement this, you can use conditions inside of ManyChat to check at the end who didn't click on your last step, for example, that might send to a sales page. And then from there, you can then send the three minute and or the twenty two hour later follow-up, track how many people are opening and replying to those messages, and compare it to how many extra people you got there versus what you used to get with that previous automation.
09:35So when we're following up, like I was sharing, either three minutes later, twenty two hours later, we used to say something like, reply with your email, and I'll send this free guide over, which is telling them what to do. Now instead, we try to end in a question every single time no matter what because that has gotten us a way better response rate every single time.
09:54So for example, we might say, what's your email so I can send this over? Or literally just a question mark because sometimes a simple question mark actually outperforms all other copy that we test against it. A question feels conversational, and people increasingly hate being told what to do.
10:11And so in a DM funnel that they opted into, they want to answer a question or feel like they're in a conversation because it makes them feel like they're in control, and it feels natural for the DM environment that they're in. So the thing that you can do right now to take this into account and start getting better results is go into your automations, find the follow-up messages that you have set up right now, and rewrite each sentence or statement that you've shared in a follow-up message into a question.
10:38Now if you're gonna add extra text to it, that's okay. Try to keep it really short though to, like, two or three sentences max, and make sure that you're ending with a question at the end of it. Test it for seven days and see if your response rate is higher than your previous version.
10:50We used to gatekeep everything behind email collection, meaning that if you didn't give one of our accounts that we manage your email, then you wouldn't get the freebie, the discount code, whatever it was that was promised in the post or the story that you engage with. Now the people who refuse to give their email would sometimes be like, hey.
11:08I don't feel comfortable leaving my email or I don't want to or whatever have you. And so we decided to shift that and go, okay. How do we protect the brand reputation and the rapport?
11:18Because then either people at least feel amicable about how our last interaction went with them as a brand, or they come back later and go, you know what? I really appreciate you sending that to me, and now I'm still interested in buying from you.
11:30So now if somebody says, hey. I don't wanna give my email, then the automated DM funnel is just gonna send them the thing that we promised without actually collecting their email. And a lot of those people end up coming back later, like I said, and buying anyways because we treated them with respect.
11:45We implement this in two spots. So the first is that if you ask somebody for their email and then they reply saying, I don't wanna share my email, then we'll reply with something like, hey.
11:54No problem. Here's the thing. Like, hope you enjoy.
11:57Hope you get value out of it. And then the other place is going to be the follow-up. So for example, with the twenty two hour later follow-up, sometimes what we'll do, if we don't have any kind of upsell opportunity that we really wanna maximize there, then we will follow-up and just say, hey.
12:10Like, no worries if you don't wanna share your email. Here's the link to the thing that you had asked for. So in the full funnel, that plays out as somebody enters the funnel, and then they give us their email or they don't.
12:21And then from there, we then say, hey. No problem. Or they just don't reply at all.
12:26And then we follow-up three minutes later. We ask them for their email again. If they still don't reply, then twenty two hours later, that's where we're saying, hey.
12:33No problem. If you don't wanna share your email, here's the thing that I promised you. Instagram's shift from social graph to interest graph completely changed the math on call to actions.
12:42Our old rule was one in every three posts would have a call to action, but that was built for a platform that no longer exists. So this is something that we tested aggressively across many accounts in 2025. We used a call to action in every single post, and what we found was in a given calendar month, we got more leads and more sales than the accounts that were still only using a call to action in every third post.
13:06Meaning that two of three of their posts at any given time on their feed did not have a call to action and only one did. And the reason is actually very simple. In an interest graph world, meaning that every post you are reaching more and more non followers than followers, that it makes the most sense to always have the ability to be able to invite people into a comment call to action, which gets them into your DMs either for a free or a paid thing.
13:32So here are two options you have for implementing this. If you have an offer that you wanna drive as many leads and sales to as possible and the person that's creating content on your Instagram account maybe has too much on their plate, then what you wanna do is use a PS section in the post caption. So an example of this would be after you have your main post caption, whether it's long, medium sized, or literally just a sentence, you would say something like PS or by the way, like, if you're new here or hey, my name is so and so.
14:00Here's what I'm about, why I do what I do. And if you wanna learn more about x y z, then come check out my course, join my free webinar, download my free thing, whatever.
14:10Just comment, and you can get access to it. Follow then comment, by the way. But if you have more than one offer and they bring in just as much revenue as each other and you have a team that has a little bit of capacity to test something new, then it can be more advantageous if you have a CTA posting schedule.
14:28So instead of using the same call to action in every single caption no matter what, you would rotate through three to five at least free offers and then one to five paid offers. In this interest graph world, every post is a chance to convert someone new who's never heard of you but really needs help with the thing that you offer.
14:45If you're posting consistently but you're still not seeing revenue, then your content is not the problem. You just need to convert the attention that you're already getting inside of a way better conversion vehicle. So use these eight tactics that we're using to get the best results yet with ManyChat in 2026.
15:02And if you have a 7 to 10 figure business that's posting content, you wanna grow your revenue from that content while being able to track your sales accurately from content, then we specialize in helping you do that. You can check out the link in the description to learn more about how we work with clients, and I'll see you in the next video.
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
Fifty million Instagram messages in one year. That number opens the video like a door being kicked off its hinges, and the three seconds that follow — 100,000 automations, $100M in sales, all through DMs — make it clear this is not a beginner's ManyChat walkthrough. It is an operator's checklist.
Named ideas worth stealing.
04:08list
DM Funnel Order (2025 version)
- First message (confirm the offer)
- Ask for email
- Ask for first name
- Deliver offer + continue conversation
The updated sequence that outperformed the pre-2025 name-first order across all audience and offer types tested.
Steal forAny ManyChat or DM automation sequence collecting contact info
08:26model
Follow-up Window Playbook
- B2B: 3-minute follow-up + 22-hour follow-up
- B2C: 22-hour follow-up only
Two tested windows that recover 10-30% of conversations that stalled. Every other interval underperformed these.
Steal forAny automated follow-up sequence on Instagram
11:22concept
No-Email Graceful Exit
If the user refuses to give their email, deliver the freebie anyway. Implement at two points: when they refuse during the funnel, and in the 22-hour follow-up. Converts to purchases later via goodwill.
Steal forAny lead magnet funnel where email collection is gated
12:53concept
Interest Graph CTA Schedule
Every post gets a comment-to-DM CTA. If you have one primary offer, use a PS section in every caption. If you have multiple offers, rotate 3-5 free offers and 1-5 paid offers across posts.
Steal forInstagram content calendar for any creator with an existing offer
How they asked for the click.
VERBAL ASK
15:00product
“If you have a 7 to 10 figure business that's posting content, you wanna grow your revenue from that content while being able to track your sales accurately from content, then we specialize in helping you do that. You can check out the link in the description to learn more about how we work with clients.”
Soft close at the very end. No interruption of the tutorial content. The free value in the video IS the pitch — the agency offer is the natural upgrade for people who want this done for them.
MENTIONED ON CAMERA
Visual structure at a glance.
