Glossary

These are the words used throughout the rest of the documentation. Each definition includes the part people most often get wrong.

Terms

Automation

One rule: a trigger, an optional choice of posts, optional keyword conditions, an optional follow gate, and the message or messages to send. An automation does nothing until you publish it, and it must also be switched on.

Trigger

The event that starts an automation. There are four: someone comments, someone sends a DM, someone replies to your story, someone mentions you in their story.

Public reply

A comment posted underneath someone else's comment, visible to everyone who reads the post.

Private reply

A direct message sent in answer to a comment. Instagram allows one private reply per comment, within seven days of it being posted. It is not the same as an ordinary DM, and the limit is Instagram's rule rather than ours.

Messaging window

Instagram only lets you send someone a direct message within 24 hours of their last message to you. After that, the send is refused. This applies to messages you type by hand as well as automated ones.

Follow gate

An option that holds back the DM until the person confirms they follow you. It cannot simply check whether they follow, because Instagram does not reveal it until they have messaged you. Instead it asks, and delivers once they confirm. See The follow gate.

Match mode

How keywords are compared. Any matches everything. Contains matches when a keyword appears anywhere in the text. Exact matches only when the whole message is the keyword.

Exclude keyword

A word that prevents a match. Exclusions are checked first and override everything, whatever the match mode.

Draft and live

A new automation is a draft while you build it. Publishing makes it live. Both drafts and live automations count towards your plan's automation limit.

Skipped

Recorded when an automation matched but another automation answered instead. It is not a failure, and nothing was sent.

Contact

One person who has interacted with your account, with everything you know about them in one place. The inbox groups by conversation; contacts group by person.

Bio page

A public page at dmrabbit.com followed by your chosen handle, holding your links and articles. It belongs to your dmrabbit account and is not connected to Instagram, so it keeps working if you change your Instagram username.