How Follow Gate works

What Follow Gate does

Follow Gate lets ZayDM check whether a person follows your Instagram account before sending the final response.

It is available for:

• Comment on post or reel
• Direct message
• Story Reply

Follow Gate does not force someone to follow your account. It checks follow status and controls whether the automation should continue to the final response.

Follow Gate works together with Opening Message. Opening Message must be On before Follow Gate can be enabled.

Turn on Follow Gate

Open the automation you want to configure.

For Comment Automation, Follow Gate appears under Before the main DM.

For Direct message and Story Reply automations, it appears under Before the main response.

1. Turn Opening Message On.
2. Configure the Opening Message and CTA button label. The default CTA is Continue.
3. Turn Follow Gate On.
4. Configure the follow reminder settings.
5. Add the final response under Send them a DM.
6. Select Save Draft when creating a new automation, or Save changes when editing an inactive draft.
7. Select Start Automation when the setup is ready.

If Opening Message is Off, the Follow Gate switch is disabled and ZayDM shows Depends on Opening Message.

Turning Opening Message off also makes Follow Gate inactive for the automation. ZayDM keeps the saved Follow Gate configuration, but turning Opening Message back on does not automatically re-enable Follow Gate. Turn Follow Gate on again before starting the automation.

Configure the follow reminder

When Follow Gate is On, you can configure what a person sees when ZayDM cannot confirm that they already follow the account.

The available settings include:

• Follow reminder message
• Visit profile button label
• I'm following button text
• Max attempts
• Preview

Visit Profile opens the Instagram profile so the person can follow the account. Opening the profile does not itself recheck follow status.

The confirmation button, which defaults to I'm following ✅, tells ZayDM to check the follow status again.

Max attempts controls how many confirmation checks the person can make for that Follow Gate session. The current supported range is 1 to 5, with 3 as the default.

What the recipient experiences

When Opening Message and Follow Gate are both enabled, the flow is:

Trigger → Opening Message → Continue → Follow Gate check → Final response

Follow Gate never runs before the person taps Continue.

If the person already follows you

After the person taps Continue, ZayDM checks their follow status.

If ZayDM confirms they already follow the account, the Follow Gate reminder is skipped and the automation proceeds to the final response.

If the person does not follow you

If ZayDM confirms they are not following, it sends the configured follow reminder.

The person can:

1. tap Visit Profile
2. follow the Instagram account
3. return to the conversation
4. tap I'm following ✅ or your configured confirmation button

ZayDM then checks their follow status again.

If the follow is confirmed, the automation proceeds to the final response.

If they are still not following, the reminder can be shown again until the configured Max attempts is reached.

If the person never completes the gate, the final response is not sent for that Follow Gate session.

Follow status checks and limitations

Follow status is checked at specific points in the flow. ZayDM does not continuously monitor whether someone follows the account after they open the profile.

A check happens when the person continues through the Opening Message, confirms that they followed, or reaches another eligible point in the current gate flow.

Sometimes Instagram may not return a clear follow status. ZayDM can treat that situation differently depending on the automation type:

• For Comment on post or reel, an unknown status stays on the Follow Gate path rather than releasing the final response.
• For Direct message and Story Reply, an unknown status can allow the automation to continue to the final response.

If a confirmation check still cannot verify the follow, the final response is not released by that confirmation action.

Because Follow Gate depends on Instagram follow-status information, it should be treated as a check rather than a guarantee that every person has followed successfully.

Save, start, and edit a Follow Gate automation

Follow Gate can be configured while an automation is still an inactive draft.

Use:

• Save Draft when creating the automation
• Save changes when editing an inactive automation
• Start Automation when you want it to run
• Stop Automation when you need to edit an active automation

Saving does not activate the automation.

If your current plan does not include Follow Gate, ZayDM can still allow the draft configuration to remain saved, but it checks the feature entitlement when you select Start Automation.

Use the Upgrade plan or Review billing action shown in the dashboard if activation is blocked.

Test Follow Gate

For a useful test, use another Instagram account.

Test with an account that does not follow you

1. Turn Opening Message and Follow Gate On.
2. Add at least one final response.
3. Save and start the automation.
4. Trigger it from another Instagram account that does not follow you.
5. When the Opening Message arrives, tap Continue.
6. Confirm the Follow Gate reminder appears.
7. Tap Visit Profile and follow the account.
8. Return to the DM and tap I'm following ✅.
9. Confirm the final response arrives.

Test with an account that already follows you

Trigger the same automation from an account that already follows your Instagram account.

After Continue, ZayDM should skip the Follow Gate reminder and proceed to the final response.

If you are testing a Comment Automation, see Set up Comment Automation. For Direct message or Story Reply setup, see Set up DM Keyword Automation or Set up Story Reply Automation.

Follow Gate and Smart Follow-Ups

Smart Follow-Ups begin only after the Final response is sent successfully.

Because Follow Gate sits before the final response, it can delay the start of Smart Follow-Ups.

If the person never passes Follow Gate and the final response is never sent, Smart Follow-Ups do not start for that automation run.

Button taps such as Continue and Follow Gate confirmation actions are not treated as genuine inbound replies that cancel Smart Follow-Ups.

See How Smart Follow-Ups work for the full follow-up behavior.

Common issues

Follow Gate is disabled

Turn Opening Message On first. Follow Gate depends on Opening Message and cannot be enabled while Opening Message is Off.

I turned Opening Message back on, but Follow Gate is still off

This is expected. ZayDM preserves the previous Follow Gate settings, but you must turn Follow Gate On again.

The person tapped Visit Profile but nothing happened

Opening the Instagram profile does not recheck follow status. After following, the person must return to the conversation and tap I'm following ✅ or your configured confirmation button.

The person says they followed, but the final response is still blocked

Ask them to return to the DM and tap the confirmation button again. Follow status is checked when they confirm.

If Instagram cannot verify the status, the automation may remain on the Follow Gate path depending on the trigger type.

The person never passes Follow Gate

The final response is not sent for that session if the person never follows successfully or reaches the maximum confirmation attempts.

A later new trigger can start a new Follow Gate session after the previous session expires.

I cannot start the automation

Check the message shown by ZayDM. Your current plan, active automation allowance, connection health, or another eligibility rule may be preventing activation.

Use the Upgrade plan or Review billing action shown in the product.

If the automation still does not behave as expected, see Automation not triggering.