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Set up Comment Triggers on Instagram

Comment Triggers let your assistant privately message anyone who comments one of your keywords on an Instagram post or reel (for example, a post that says "comment GUIDE and I'll send it to you"), and then send them what you promised. It needs a connected Instagram sender; see connect-instagram. For what the commenter experiences and how to follow each conversation, see comment-to-dm-replies.

Create a Comment Trigger

Owners and admins can open Comment Triggers in the sidebar and select an Instagram sender.

  1. Click New Comment Trigger, or choose Create a Comment Trigger under From your captions to use a keyword your post asks people to comment.
  2. Enter a name and keywords separated by commas. Choose All posts, or Only some posts and Choose posts to select posts or reels.
  3. Set the Button label for the first private message. Commenters who haven't messaged you before see the button after they accept your message request. Add instructions for your assistant and an optional Backup first message. Keep the automated-message notice enabled where required. Your assistant writes the first message even when your phase instructions keep its topic off limits (for example "never give prices" with a pricing card), but its later replies follow the phase, so keep the two consistent.
  4. Under What they get, choose a PDF (up to 25 MB), a card with a title, link and optional JPEG/PNG image (up to 8 MB), a plain link, or nothing automatic. Upload your PDF or card image there.
  5. If you want a follow-up phase, choose it under Then move them to, and click Save.

Keywords match regardless of capitalization, accents, punctuation, emoji, or stretched spelling ("GUIIIDE!"). A keyword scoped to a selected post takes priority over the same keyword for all posts.

Edit, pause or delete a trigger

Triggers belong to the sender's playbook. Editing one affects every sender that uses that playbook. Use Turn off to pause a trigger without deleting it, or Edit to change or delete it.

Reply to the comment publicly too

Turn on Reply to the comment publicly too to acknowledge the comment after the DM opener succeeds. Supply several reply variants to rotate the copy, or leave them empty for localized defaults that mention DMs and Message Requests. Instagram restricts accounts that post many near-identical replies, so write variants that differ in wording and length, with words rather than only emoji, and no links. Public replies go out a few seconds to a minute and a half after the DM, and at most 60 per sender per hour; past that, comments still get the DM but no public reply.

Ask commenters to follow you first

Turn on Ask them to follow you before sending it to withhold the delivery until Instagram confirms the commenter follows your account. Your assistant asks them to follow and tells them it arrives on its own once they do. Yapper keeps checking for about a day after they accept (often in the first minutes, then less often) and on every message they send. As soon as they follow, the delivery goes out with a short thank-you from your assistant, with no need for them to write again. If they still haven't followed after about an hour, your assistant sends them one short reminder. Nothing is sent while the conversation is paused or escalated. A selected follow-up phase starts after that delivery.

Measure a trigger

Each trigger lists the last 30 days of matched comments, openers sent, accepted openers and deliveries. Repeated processing does not count twice. Matched comments include people who already received the trigger's opener; acceptance includes typed replies. These are activity counts, so stages can span different windows.

Manage triggers with the Consultant

You can also ask the Consultant to list, create or edit triggers; configuration changes go through the usual admin approval. You can name a sender by its Instagram handle (for example "@yourshop"). See consultant-proposals.