Instagram Chatbots: Top 5 Vendors, Use Cases & Best Practices

Instagram is the 2nd-most¹ used social media platform for e-commerce purchases. 44%² of “active” Instagrammers use it to shop weekly.

With the growing popularity of Instagram as an e-commerce hub, brands should use Instagram chatbots to automate interactions, enhance engagement, and streamline online purchases.

However, businesses might be unfamiliar with the top Instagram chatbot vendors, or the Instagram features their chatbot should utilize. This article lists the top chatbot providers, best practices for optimizing an Instagram chatbot, and more.

What are the top Instagram chatbot providers?

The following table is in descending number of employee count:

*Price is per 20,000 conversations for all vendors except Intercom, that didn’t clarify. We took their Pro Package pricing that offers +1,000 conversations.

Vendor criteria

There are 243 conversational AI platforms. We shortlisted the best ones based on: 

• Having +100 employees on LinkedIn
• Explicitly claiming to offer Instagram integration

Features

To identify the vendor that offers the best Instagram chatbot, we looked for the following features:

1. Click-to-chat ads: Starting a conversation when users click on an ad (Figure 1)

Figure 1: Click-to-chat ads direct users to a chatbot. Image source.

2. Responding to story mentions: Monitoring the brand’s story mentions and responding to users
3. Responding to comments: Monitoring and responding to users
4. Connecting to live agents: Handing complex queries to humans
5. Offering payment buttons: Providing a universal payment gateway button (i.e., PayPal or Stripe but not Shopify)
6. Upselling and cross-selling: Suggesting complementary and substitutionary products to increase average order value (AOV)
7. Meta certification: A chatbot developed by a Meta-certified vendor means it:
   • Adheres to Meta’s QA
   • Has priority access to API features 
   • Leverages Meta’s technical support 
   • Supports Meta’s data protection frameworks, and more.

How do Instagram chatbots work? 

Instagram chatbots are similar to other chatbots. They can be triggered by emojis or keywords and pick an answer from their knowledge base. Moreover, adding ML and generative AI functionalities expands their conversational and operational features.

For example, Figure 2 shows how an Instagram chatbot can read comments and Instagram direct messages, understand their sentiments, and respond accordingly.

Figure 2: An Instagram chatbot’s architecture for reading and responding to comments and messages. Image source.

Having said that, there are Instagram-native functionalities – like reacting to Story mentions or responding to comments – that are specific to Instagram chatbots.

Why is having an Instagram chatbot important?

The importance of having an Instagram chatbot lies in the growth of Instagram as an e-commerce platform:

1. It’s the primary platform³ for researching brands and products
2. It’s the 2nd most used and important social media platform for marketers⁴
3. It’s the 2nd⁵ social media platform with the highest e-commerce sales
4. Instagram will have 1.6B⁶ users by 2027
5. 60% ⁷ of users learn about a product on Instagram
6. 90%⁸ of Instagram users follow a business profile 

Brands wishing to capitalize on Instagram’s vast user engagement and influential marketing potential should use a dedicated chatbot to automate interactions, capture and nurture leads, and make sales.

What can Instagram chatbots do?

Instagram chatbots can automatically:

1. Reply to emoji-based story reactions (Figure 4)

Figure 4: Instagram chatbots can respond accordingly to emoji reactions. Image source.

2. Reply to Direct Messages (DMs) (Figure 5)

Figure 5: Instagram chatbots can automate DM replies. Image source.

3. Allow users to place and pay their orders on DMs (Figure 6)

Figure 6: Instagram chatbots can let users place and pay their orders without leaving the app. Image source.

4. Reply to comments on the comments thread or on DMs
5. React to Story mentions (i.e., by sending a coupon code as a thank you, for example)
6. Collect users’ information for lead generation and personalized DMs
7. Connect the customer to a live agent if the query is complex

How to create Instagram chatbots? 

You can create Instagram chatbots by using a chatbot developer or a chatbot vendor.  Building your own Instagram chatbot can be complex and expensive. So, it’s expected to be a less popular choice and won’t be covered here.

Using a chatbot provider

1. Create an Instagram business account or switch the personal one to a business 
2. Link it with a Facebook fan page. If you don’t have any, you have to create one.
   • Facebook’s involvement is because Instagram uses Facebook Messenger’s API
3. Link your chatbot platform to your Instagram account
4. Customize the chatbot for your use case. 

Each chatbot provider has a different GUI. So, read/watch documentation/tutorials. But typically, a low-code configuration looks as follow:

• Suppose you want to integrate Stripe’s payment gateway in Direct Messages, enabling customers to place and pay their orders in the chat.

• Go to “Integrations” on your developer’s dashboard. Search “Stripe.” Connect it to your account.

• Add the product’s info, image, and price to its card.

• Your chatbot now allows users to finalize purchases on Instagram DM.

What are the benefits/use cases of Instagram chatbots?

1. Enhanced product showcasing

Instagram chatbots can dynamically showcase products, via carousel features or links to Posts, Reels, Videos, and Stories

2. Story interactions 

Stories are one of the most used features of Instagram:

• +500M Instagrammers use Stories daily⁹ 
• 70% of Instagrammers watch Stories daily¹⁰
• 49% of Gen Z use Stories to find products/services¹¹ 
• 1 in 3 Instagrammers are more interested in a Story-showcased product¹²

Using a chatbot in Instagram marketing campaign can interact with users to increase conversion rates by:

• Responding to product inquiries
• Giving discount codes 
• Setting reminders (if the Story is promoting an event)
• Soliciting feedback (if the Story is highlighting a product)

3. End-to-end shopping 

Instagram has native shopping features, like Shopping Tags and Checkout. Instagram chatbots can guide the user through the buying process in the app, resulting in lower exit rates. 

4. Providing product information

After seeing a product on Instagram, 79%¹³ of users try to find more information about it. Some in-app methods of finding information are:

• Reading other users comments 
• Posting a comment
• Direct Messaging the brand 
• Looking at images

Chatbots can monitor these engagement points and automatically answer product questions in comments and DMs. This lets users find information instantly in the app, instead of on search engines.

5. Hyper-targeted messaging

Using Instagram’s analytics and insights, chatbots can compile user data on behavior and past brand interactions to deliver focused messages, including exclusive deals and personalized recommendations.

Learn more about chatbot analytics.

6. Data-driven influencer collaboration

6.1. The scope of influencer marketing on Instagram

• On average, ~30%¹⁴ of users make an “influenced-by-influencers” purchase
• 53%¹⁵ of Gen Z had made an “influenced-by-influencers” purchase
• 51%¹⁶ of users’ purchase were influenced by social media advertising
• By 2025, Instagram’s influencer marketing size will be $22.2B¹⁷

6.2. Leveraging chatbots for influencer collaborations

Companies can use an Instagram chatbot to benefit from Influencer marketing by:

• Sending personalized message to users who tag the product in their Posts or Stories.

• Collecting analytics of an influencer’s post, like engagement, click-through, and conversion rates to measure the ROI of the collaboration campaign.
  • When successful posts/Stories are identified, delve into specifics like:
    • Filters used in the Stories or images
    • Timing of the posts or Stories
    • Duration of Stories
    • Presence or absence of closed captions
• Answering queries instantly and consistently. This is most important especially when collaborating with a popular influencer driving high traffic to your account.
• Distributing automated follow-up messages, discount codes, or special offers to users redirected from an influencer’s Call-to-Action (CTA) stickers and affiliate links.

7. Quick DM replies

Rule-based Instagram chatbots can quickly resolve common queries on DMs. For more complex customer service or sales questions, advanced AI algorithms can give a personalized answer.

For example, a user gives their body measurements and asks what size would fit them. The chatbot accesses its database and replies that, “In the past, customers with similar body measurements bought X or Y size.” 

8. Shopping cart abandonment recovery

An Instagram chatbot can send an automated reminder or discount code to incentivize users who’ve abandoned their cart.

What are some tips for optimizing an Instagram chatbot?

Program the chatbot to integrate with the following Instagram features:

1. Instagram stories 

Use Stories to promote the chatbot and its functionalities. Direct people to engage with the chatbot through swipe-up links to CTA link stickers 

2. Instagram Insights 

Use Instagram’s native analytics tools to monitor how users interact with the chatbot via DMs, and adjust your strategies accordingly. 

3. IGTV, Reels, and Lives 

For more engaging product exhibitions, let the chatbot direct users to IGTV and Reels. 

If you have planned Live sessions, have the chatbot send reminders to users to join ahead of time.

4. Quick and Saved Replies 

Use the Quick and Saved Replies feature in your chatbot’s script to allow users to select from pre-set responses for basic, repetitive queries. 

5. Hashtags 

Use the chatbot to manage hashtag promotions. It can tell users to share photos/Stories of a product with its specific hashtag. Or if someone wants to explore a t-shirt’s styling options, for example, it can give its hashtag from previous campaigns so they can search.

6. Comments 

Use the chatbot to reply/like comments to enhance engagement, answer questions, and increase exposure in followers’ feeds. 

7. Shopping feature 

Use Instagram’s shopping feature and the chatbot’s payment gateway integration to enable users to place and pay for orders in the chat. 

8. Post tags and Story mentions 

When your product or brand is tagged on Posts or mentioned in Stories, program the chatbot to respond/engage appropriately.

9. Carousel and collection posts 

Program the chatbot to handle Instagram’s carousel and collection post formats when sharing multiple images or product listings. 

10. Spam-free guidelines

Follow Instagram’s guidelines¹⁸ to ensure your bot doesn’t spam. You can program the bot to only answer/send a certain number of comments/DMs each hour, or not use the exact wording for all its answers.

11. Images, files, & emojis

Given Instagram’s young user-base¹⁹, program the chatbot to converse via a combination of images, files, emojis, and GIFs.

FAQ

Further reading

• WhatsApp HR: Top 25 Use Cases For Human Resources
• Chatbot Lead Generation: Top 8 Benefits
• Chatbot vs Voicebot: Where to Use Each One?

If you want to invest in a chatbot, visit our data-driven list of chatbot vendors. And reach out to us if you have further questions:

Find the Right Vendors

Transparency statement

This article was originally written by former AIMultiple industry analyst Bardia Eshghi and reviewed by Cem Dilmegani.

Sources

• 1. “Social media platforms through which online shoppers worldwide are most likely to make purchases in 2022.” Statista. April 28, 2023.
• 2. “44% of people surveyed use Instagram to shop weekly.” Instagram. November 18, 2021.
• 3. “The Future of Social Marketing.” Hootsuite. 2023. Retrieved on October 2, 2023.
• 4. “Most important social media platforms for marketers worldwide as of January 2023.” Statista. September 27, 2023. Retrieved on October 2, 2023.
• 5. “What’s behind the social commerce surge in 5 charts?” Insider Intelligence. November 30, 2023. Retrieved on October 2, 2023.
• 6. “Number of Instagram users worldwide from 2018 to 2027.” Statista. August 14, 2023. Retrieved on October 2, 2023.
• 7. “Must-Know Instagram Shopping Statistics” Gitnux. 2023. Retrieved on October 2, 2023.
• 8. “Must-Know Instagram Shopping Statistics” Gitnux. 2023. Retrieved on October 2, 2023.
• 9. “33+ Incredible Instagram Stories Statistics to Know in 2023” Tech Jury. July 27, 2023. Retrieved on October 2, 2023.
• 10. “33+ Incredible Instagram Stories Statistics to Know in 2023” Tech Jury. July 27, 2023. Retrieved on October 2, 2023.
• 11. “33+ Incredible Instagram Stories Statistics to Know in 2023” Tech Jury. July 27, 2023. Retrieved on October 2, 2023.
• 12. “How can marketers create compelling Instagram Stories ads?” Meta. March 1, 2018. Retrieved on October 2, 2023.
• 13. “How Instagram Boosts Brands and Drives Sales.” Meta. February 6, 2019. Retrieved on October 2, 2023.
• 14. “Amounts spent on products endorsed by influencers according to consumers in the United States.” Statista. January 6, 2023. Retrieved on October 2, 2023.
• 15. “Share of consumers whose buying decisions were influenced by social media influencers in the United Kingdom (UK), by generational cohort.” Statista. June 26, 2023. Retrieved on October 2, 2023.
• 16. “Share of consumers whose purchasing decisions were influenced by social media advertising in the United States.” Statista. January 10, 2023. Retrieved on October 2, 2023.
• 17. “Global Instagram influencer market size from 2021 to 2025.” Statista. September 27, 2023. Retrieved on October 2, 2023.
• 18. “Community Guidelines.” Instagram. Retrieved on October 2, 2023.
• 19. “Distribution of Instagram users worldwide, by age group.” Statista. August 25, 2023. Retrieved on October 2, 2023.