What are Instagram leads?

Instagram leads start with two questions about a profile. Could this person or company want what you sell? And is there a way to reach them? The first is your judgement. The second depends on what the account chose to publish.

What counts as a lead

A lead needs interest and a contact. An account with thousands of followers and no contact on its profile is an audience, and you can only reach it through Instagram itself. A small account that lists an email address is something you can act on today.

Business and personal profiles can both count. A photographer with a personal profile and an email in her bio is as much a lead as a shop with a business profile.

Where the contact comes from

It comes from what the account publishes. We read public profile data only. We do not sign in to anyone's account to read it, and we do not read private profiles or messages.

Two limits follow from that:

• A private account gives you nothing, because it is not read.
• A public profile may show no contact at all, and a read can come back without one.

A social platform can also change what it shows at any time, so we cannot promise that a given field will be there next month.

Where to look for Instagram leads

We read two lists: the followers of an Instagram account you choose, and the accounts it follows.

Followers of a competitor are a sensible place to start. They already chose to watch someone who sells what you sell. The accounts a competitor follows tend to show who that business works with and pays attention to. Neither list proves that a person wants to buy, so read the profiles before you write to anyone.

What a read costs

1 credit reads 1 public profile, whether or not the profile shows an email address. The plans and credit packs say what each costs.

So a list of 500 public followers costs 500 credits, and only the profiles that show a contact are ones you can reach. Plan with that gap in mind: the credits count profiles read, and the leads are a smaller group inside them.

What you may do with a contact

A contact being public does not settle what you may do with it. Under our Terms you decide whom to read and what to do with the result, and you are the controller of that contact data. In practice that means:

• You need a lawful basis under the GDPR, and under any other law that applies, for each person you keep, contact or upload.
• You owe each person in the EU the information Art. 14 GDPR asks for, including where their data came from. Give it within one month of obtaining the data, and at the latest when you first contact them.
• You need any prior consent the law asks for before you send advertising by email.

This is a summary of what our Terms ask of you and is no legal advice. If you plan to write to people in a new country, check that country's rules first.

A short way to judge a list

Before you spend credits on a whole list, ask three things:

1. Would the people following this account plausibly buy from you?
2. Does the account attract customers, or mostly other sellers?
3. Could you say something specific to them in your first message?

If the answers are weak, pick another account. A smaller list of the right people is worth more than a long one you never write to.