If you want to make your first $5,000 on Instagram, it’s time to stop relying on posting alone and let automations sell for you.

In this blog post, I’m sharing the exact DM automation that top creators are using to message their audience, track who’s interested, and follow up on autopilot, so you can sell digital products while you sleep.

Ready? Because today I’m going to help you make your first $5,000 on Instagram.

As always, if you’d prefer to watch instead of read, click the video below. Let’s jump right in.

DISCLAIMER: Links included in this post might be affiliate links. If you purchase a product or service with the links that I provide, I may receive a small commission. There is no additional charge to you! Thank you for supporting me so I can continue to provide you with free content each week on my blog and on my YouTube channel!

How to Make Your First $5,000 on Instagram Using Automations

If making money online is one of the goals that you’ve set for yourself this year, then this post is for you.

Passive income is a topic that I get asked about a lot, and I understand why. The idea that you can make money while you’re sleeping, out with your friends, or spending time with your family…it’s the ultimate goal.

And I truly believe that the best way to generate genuinely passive income is through automations. If you’ve ever read my blog before, then you know that I talk about automations a LOT. But today, I’m going to do something a little bit different.

Today I’m helping you build just one automation to connect with your audience and help you make your first $5,000 on Instagram.

The Road to Making $5,000 on Instagram

Before we get into the automation, I want to talk to you about HOW to make your first $5,000 on Instagram, because if that feels really far away…then it is. You need to be able to see $5,000 within reach for it to be possible for you, kind of like manifesting it, but we’ll actually be making a plan.

The idea is that once you see the steps laid out, making $5,000 on Instagram is simple (not easy, but simple).

The framework or ‘Road to $5,000’ that I’m going to share today is:

• 185 people buy a $27 product
• 102 people buy a $49 product, or
• 52 people buy a $97 product

To get started, you’ll need a digital product created and ready to sell. If you need help with that step, I recommend reading this blog post next. In that post, I walk you through choosing, creating, and setting up your digital product so it’s ready to sell. Once you have that set up, come back here, and I’ll help you automate the sales.

With the right funnels in place, you can not only sell your digital product, but you can also automatically upsell your audience from your cheapest product to a more expensive one, without having to do anything manually. This means you can exponentially scale the amount of money that you can make from a single funnel.

To do all of this, we’re going to be using Manychat (of course!). This is a tool I’ve been using since 2022, and I really swear by it for content creators. Manychat helps you set up Auto-DMs with your audience, which increases engagement, helps convert followers into email subscribers, and can even help you get paid more for brand collaborations (more on that in this post).

Today, instead of starting with a prebuilt automation, we’re going to use the Flow Builder to build a more advanced, custom automation. Here’s the funnel we’ll be building ⬇️

This is the part of the tutorial you might want to watch; if so, you can find that video here and skip ahead to 3:24. However, I will outline the steps for you to follow below.

Open Manychat, and let’s build this automation together. By the way, if you don’t have Manychat yet, you can use this link and code: MODERNMILLIE to get Manychat Pro for free for 30 days.

Building Your Manychat Automation to Make $5,000 on Instagram

As I said, I think it’s easiest to set this automation up alongside me (and if you’d like to watch me build it, click here for the video). Here are your steps:

• Open Manychat → Click on ‘Automations’ and then click on → ‘New Automation’
• Scroll down and choose the ‘Auto Send Links in DMs’ and then click on → ‘Set up Template’
• Click on ‘Add a New Trigger,’ and you’ll see all of the options that you can choose from.
• Customize your response comments.

A trigger is the event that kicks off our automation. You can set multiple triggers to make sure people enter the automation no matter how they reach out (for example, if they comment on your post, send you a message, or reply to your story).

Today I’m going to set mine up with ‘If the user sends me a message’ or ‘if the user comments on any of my posts/videos.’

By the way, choosing ‘Any posts/videos’ helps keep the automation evergreen. You could create another post down the line that uses this same keyword as a trigger, and you wouldn’t have to set up a new automation.

From there, you can customize the message that gets sent and the response. Trust me, you want to make sure that you have ‘replies’ turned on; this is such a good boost for engagement–I have tested this. And I recommend customizing the responses so they sound more like you.

Setting Up Your Response

Now it’s time to send your message. Now, the point of this automation is to make money. How are you going to do that? By talking about your digital product. Let’s say, for example, that you make a reel sharing value that relates to your digital product; you’ll have someone comment your keyword, and they’ll get a DM from you inviting them to learn more about your product.

So we’re going to deliver the digital product right away.

Here’s a message you could use: “Hey! 👋🏼 Here’s a link to my 12-Month Content Creator Plan where I walk you through how to become a full-time content creator in the next 12 months (it’s only $27). Want to check it out?”

And then I like to include a button: “Yes please!”

Once they’ve clicked on that button, we’re going to send another Instagram message. This is the delivery message, so you might say: “Perfect! Here’s the link 👇🏻,” and then include the link to your digital product right away.

Now technically you could stop there. You’ve gotten your followers into the funnel, and hopefully they’ll buy your digital product. But we’re not going to stop there. We’re going to keep talking to and nurturing this person so we can keep them engaged and, hopefully, upsell them.

The goal here is to be engaging but not overwhelming.

Adding Advanced Steps to the Automation

Go to your last message, and there we’re going to set up a ‘Smart Delay’ as the ‘Next Step,’ and then we’re also going to add an ‘Action’ if they clicked on the button that would take them to your digital product.

Funnel for Users Who DON’T Click to Buy

Here are the steps:

• Go to your last message → Click on the ‘Yellow Circle’ on your button → Add a tag.

Tags are a great way to keep track of people and keep your contacts in Manychat organized. When someone clicks a button, it tells us they’ve either purchased our digital product or are at least interested enough to learn more.

This is valuable information we want to track, and it will determine how we nurture this contact. If someone doesn’t click the button, we’ll still want to nurture them, but in a different way.

• On the same message, add a Next Step → Smart Delay → Add a Smart Delay of 2 Hours → Send them another Instagram Message
• Add 2 Buttons: “Yes please!” or “No thank you”
• ‘Yes Please’ sends them a message with a link to the freebie
• ‘No thanks’ sends them a message that says something like: “No worries! Let me know if you change your mind 🧡”

Here’s an example of a message you can send to someone who hasn’t clicked on your button: “I noticed that you didn’t want to grab my 12-Month Content Creator Plan today, but I have a completely free guide that you might be interested in. Can I send you the link to that?”

Manychat Pro Tip

You don’t have to send people from your paid product to your freebie automatically. You can set up as many steps as you’d like, so you could have the first delay lead to a message reminding them to check out your digital product, before adding another delay that offers to send them the freebie.

This is completely yours to customize, and there is so much that you can do here.

Additional ways to keep people engaged might be:

• Asking them to comment another trigger word for something else they might be interested in
• Sending people to a post or reel that might help them (and that also enters them into a new funnel)
• Giving people a mini-quiz that categorizes them with tags and sends them into various funnels based on their interests.

But to keep things moving, we’re going to end the automation here for people who don’t click to buy. Remember, if someone does decide to download your freebie, that’s a way for them to enter an email automation that could then upsell them to the original digital product again.

Now let’s go back to the people who did click your button for your digital product at the start of this automation.

Funnel for Users Who DO Click to Buy

Here’s what you’re going to do for someone who did click the button:

• Add a Smart Delay of 15 Minutes (I don’t like to wait too long here; you don’t want someone to go offline or move on from this conversation. You want to keep them engaged while they’re already talking to you).
• Send them a message (assuming that they’ve purchased**)
• Add 2 Buttons
  • “I feel ready” → Send them a message** → Add a message with the digital product.
  • “I’m not ready yet” → Send them a message** → Add the message with a link to freebie.

**A sample message that you could send might be: “What did you think about the guide? Are you ready to go full-time with content creation in the next 12 months?” The goal with this message is to nurture them and help guide them to your next step.

This is where we’re going to upsell your next digital product.

**The next message you could send might be: “That’s amazing! I have the perfect resource to help you take the next steps. Can I send it to you?” This should be followed with a link directly to the offer. 

**This message could be: “That’s OK! I have a free resource that can help you become ready. Would you like me to send it to you?” This should also be followed directly with the link. 

Again, we’re going to end our funnel here, but there is so much that you can do. Honestly, I could spend all day setting up and adding steps and conditions to all of these funnels within Manychat. I think this tool has so much potential.

Funneling People Into Your Automation

Let’s bring it all back to the numbers. How many people do you need to enter your funnel to make $5,000 on Instagram? Well, let’s look at it objectively. 

If you have a funnel conversion rate of 5-10% and you’re selling a $27 product, you’ll need 185 people to buy it. That means you’ll probably need to get 2,000 people into that funnel.

That might seem like a lot, but the more you post and the more you talk about your digital products, the more that this will snowball. I see creators all the time making 5, 6, and even 7 figures a month just from digital products.

But what about if you’re selling a $49 product? You won’t need as many people to go through your funnel because you only need 102 people to buy it. Therefore, you might only need 1,100 people to make it to those first 2 messages.

And then if you’re selling a $97 product, you’ll only need 52 people to make $5,000 on Instagram, so you’ll probably only need 500-600 people to enter your funnel.

The cool part is that if you add an upsell to your automation, you’ll automatically be able to make more money from each person who buys from you. And even if someone opts for the free offer instead, you’ll have that contact on your email list where you can continue to nurture and sell to them.

I know that may have been a lot. If you have any questions, let me know in the comments below. Manychat is so powerful, and it’s so much more powerful than most people realize. It’s definitely a tool that I will keep geeking out on over the coming months and years.

Thank you so much for being here. I recommend you read this blog next because it’ll help you on your journey to make $5,000 on Instagram.

Follow your joy, and I’ll see you in the next one!