Set Up Automated Response Campaigns for Comments to Your Instagram Posts/Reels

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Shopify Instagram Shopping Guide Feature Introduction

✅ Reels/Post comments lead to automatic responses with links back to your store
✅ Send discount offers through automated responses to easily cultivate loyal fans and increase repurchase rates
✅ Shopify ⇆ Instagram two-way exposure, bringing in organic traffic to reduce customer acquisition costs
✅ Integrate IG insights reports to generate shopping guide analysis reports and identify key success factors

1. Before You Begin

1-1. First Connect Your Facebook Page and Instagram Business Account

If you're not sure whether your FB page and IG account are connected, please refer to this tutorial article: https://akohub.com/help/how-do-i-connect-my-facebook-page-and-instagram-account

1-2. Authorize Third-Party Applications to Manage Instagram Direct Messages

https://help.instagram.com/791161338412168?cms_id=791161338412168 (must be done on your mobile device, not on your laptop/PC)

Log in to your Instagram business/creator account > Click the icon in the upper right corner to enter settings

Next, scroll down to find "Messages and Story Replies"

Click on Message Controls

Turn on "Allow Access to Messages"

2. Start Creating Instagram Reels Promotion Campaign

▍Setup Path: Ako Marketing left navigation bar > Campaigns > Click "+Create Campaign", select "Instagram Reels Promotion" and follow the Continue and Start Editing Campaign buttons to enter the setup screen:

Step 1: Choose the Account for Your Campaign

Under "Account > Facebook Page", select the FB page you want to connect to this shopping guide. Please ensure that the page you selected has been successfully linked to your IG business account:

Step 2: Select the Reels/Post for Your Campaign

Scroll down to the Campaign Automation section
Name your campaign in the Campaign Name field (this name will only be visible internally)
Click the "+Select" button to the right of Reels, and a list will slide out showing all your publicly published IG Reels and post materials. Please select one item to connect to this shopping guide campaign:

After selection, click Done:

Step 3: Set Up Trigger Keywords for Comments (Optional)

If you want customers to receive private messages just by commenting: turn off Activate specific keywords detection.
If you want the system to only send "store links + discount codes" to accounts that leave specific keywords:

Toggle the "Activate specific keywords detection" switch to the right to enable it

Enter your desired keywords in the "If comment contains the keywords" field, press Enter after each keyword to add another one

What happens if you don't set this up correctly:

If keywords detection is enabled but no keywords are added: All comments will be ignored and no automated responses will be sent
If keywords detection is disabled: Every single comment will trigger an automated response, which could overwhelm your customers and appear spammy.

Step 4: Customize Your Notification Message

If you want the system to automatically tag customers' IG accounts and remind them to check their inbox for promotional messages, turn on "Reply in comment" and customize the reminder message in the "Message" input box on the right. For example: "Hi~ Thanks for your comment, we've sent you a little gift in a private message"

Step 5: Set Up Shopping Guide Store Links and Discount Codes

Next, in the "Reply in Direct Message" section, there are 3 things to do (use the "Preview" block to adjust these settings):

First, enter the message you want to send to customers privately in the "Message" field.

Next, set up the promotions you want to offer customers in the "Reward" block:

If you don't have any discount codes to give: check "None"
If you want to give a discount code: check "Discount Code" and select the Shopify discount code you want to offer from the dropdown menu. You can click Edit in Shopify to adjust the discount content.
📝 If the list is empty when you click it, it means there are no available discount codes in your Shopify discount backend. In this case, click the "+Create New" button, and the system will take you to the discount backend to create a new discount code. After creation, come back and click Refresh to load your newly created discount code for connection.

Finally, enter the store/product link for this shopping guide campaign in the "Website URL" field.

Step 6: Create a Campaign Entry Point on Your Website Homepage to Invite Members to Participate

If you want to attract more members from your website to go to IG to comment and participate in the shopping guide campaign, scroll down to Promotion and turn on the "Widget promotion" switch, then complete the following field settings while previewing the layout in "Preview":

Title: Enter the name of the Instagram shopping guide campaign, e.g., "New Product Offer"
Description: Enter the rewards or benefits of participating in the shopping guide campaign, e.g., "Comment to get 50 points", "Comment to receive 20% off coupon"
Message: Use this field if the above fields are not enough.
Icon: Set the icon for the promotion campaign
Next, customize the announcement message for the Loyalty Widget. The Loyalty Widget is a small tool that displays on your store's frontend that can drive traffic from your store to your Instagram activity, and also encourage members to interact more with your brand's Instagram, getting them to comment to receive benefits and facilitate the next order.

Step 7: Officially Launch Your Campaign

Scan through settings from Steps 1 to 6 one more time, and when confirmed, click "Create Campaign" to officially launch your shopping guide campaign. Next, please go to Chapter 3 to learn how to view shopping guide performance.

3. View Campaign Performance

From the Ako Marketing navigation bar > Campaign > Find the shopping guide campaign you want to check > Click the button in the red box to view the report:

3-1. Report Field Descriptions

There are a total of 9 indicators in the Insights block:

Plays: Number of views for Reels/posts
Likes: Number of likes for Reels/posts
Comments: Number of comments on Reels/posts
Shares: Number of times Reels/posts were shared
Saves: Number of times Reels/posts were saved
Reach: The number of people reached by this shopping guide
Link Clicked: Indicates the number of times customers actually clicked on the shopping guide link after receiving it
Orders Count: Indicates the number of orders customers actually completed through the shopping guide link
Total Spent: Indicates the total amount of orders successfully converted through this shopping guide

3-2. View Comment Records and Campaign Status

In the Customer Replies section, you can view the following information:

Name: The Instagram account name of the fan.
Comment: The fan's comment content in this shopping guide campaign.
Status: The current shopping guide status of the fan. You can filter specific statuses via the Filter in the upper right corner:

Delivered: The message has been successfully delivered to the fan's inbox but has not yet been clicked.
Clicked: The fan has clicked on the shopping guide link in the message but has not completed a purchase.
Purchased: The fan has successfully completed a purchase through the shopping guide link.

Time: The time when the fan commented.

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