Comment-to-DM for Amazon links: how "comment LINK" works on Facebook and Instagram

Comment-to-DM for Amazon links works like this: a viewer comments a word such as LINK under your Reel, and a moment later they get a private message with a button to the product. It's one of the most common ways affiliate creators get links to people on Instagram, where captions can't hold one, and it works on Facebook too.

We built it into EverySqueeze as Auto DM. This post walks through what happens between the comment and the DM, what has to be in place for it to send, and the handful of things that stop it.

The short version

Someone comments a trigger word. We check the comment, work out which video the post is, find that video's product, and send the person a DM with your message, a button to the product and your disclosure. Facebook sends it through Messenger; Instagram sends it as an Instagram DM. Only the person who commented gets it. It's never a mass message.

The words you start with are link, shop and info, and you can add a few of your own. Then there's a line in your captions telling people which word to comment, so they know the DM exists.

What counts as asking

Upper or lower case doesn't matter, so LINK, Link and link all count. A plural counts too: LINKS answers for link. The word has to be a whole word in the comment, so "linked" doesn't count, and a comment that says it doesn't want the link ("no link") gets nothing.

Long comments are handled more carefully, since most of them are reviews or replies to other people rather than requests for the link. How long is too long depends on your settings, and Auto DM has the current rule.

Your own comments never trigger it. That matters when you test (more on that below).

A different word for one post

Plenty of creators use a product word instead of LINK: comment BLENDER on the blender video. You can do that per post. Under a video in the Composer, Auto DM for this video gives that post its own trigger words, its own message, or both, and you can set it once for every video of a TikTok product. Your usual words keep working on that post too, and the caption line names the post's own word.

If you're coming from another tool, your old posts probably ask for their own words already ("Comment PATCH for the link"). Auto DM reads the caption of the post that was commented on and answers the word it asks for, with the same DM. The switch is Also answer the word each post asks for, and it's on unless you turn it off. See Moving from Scaled Creator or ManyChat.

The caption line

A DM nobody knows about doesn't get asked for. With Auto DM on, your Facebook captions get a line like "Comment LINK and I'll send you the link", using your first trigger word in capitals. Instagram has its own switch for the same line. You can reword it (it has to keep the word and can't hold a link), and you choose whether it opens the caption or sits after your text, before your hashtags.

It's skipped when your caption already asks for a word, and on posts with nothing to sell, so nobody comments and gets nothing back. Details in The Comment LINK line.

What the DM looks like

You write the greeting and the message. A First name chip drops in the commenter's name. Every DM ends with the disclosure you picked, such as #ad, (paid link) or (I may earn a commission).

The DM has a button that opens your link. On a phone the Amazon link opens the Amazon app. Inside Facebook or Messenger it first shows the product with one big Open in Amazon app button, because Facebook only lets a tap open another app. If you set your own link for a video, the button opens that instead.

You can add up to two more buttons under Buttons in your DM. One choice is See it on TikTok, which opens the TikTok video the post came from. The other is a custom button with your own label and https link.

After the DM goes out, a short public reply can go under the comment ("Check your DMs", that kind of thing). You can keep up to three replies, and they take turns so a busy post doesn't fill up with the same line.

What has to be true for it to send

This is where most "it didn't send" questions end up. In order:

1. The switch is on. Facebook and Instagram each have their own, in Settings, Auto DM. Turning on one doesn't turn on the other.
2. For Instagram, your Instagram is linked to your Facebook Page, and Allow access to messages is on in the Instagram app.
3. The post is matched to one of your TikTok videos. That's where the product comes from. Posts made through EverySqueeze are matched already. Older posts, including ones from before you joined, get their DMs once Coverage matches them, and a comment on a post that isn't matched yet waits for the match instead of being dropped.
4. The video has a product we can link: one you chose, or one we're sure of, plus your Amazon tracking ID. We never send an untagged link.
5. The comment is less than 7 days old. Meta only allows a private reply within 7 days.
6. No other tool answered first. Meta allows only one private reply per comment, so if ManyChat or a similar tool still answers comments on the same Page and gets there first, ours can't send.

The full checklist, with what each status in Settings means, is in Auto DM isn't sending.

How to test it without fooling yourself

Comment from a different account. Auto DM never DMs your own Page or your own Instagram, so a test from yourself always looks broken.

Then look in the inbox of the account that commented, not yours. If that account doesn't follow you, check its Message requests. On Facebook, check the spam folder too.

And don't test from a Facebook Page. If the commenter is a Page (a business account), Facebook doesn't let your Page DM them. Use a personal profile.

The differences between the two platforms

Same idea on both, with small differences. On Facebook the DM is one of three ways to share the link, alongside the caption and the first comment (see How to put an Amazon affiliate link on a Facebook Reel). On Instagram it's the main way, since caption and comment links aren't tappable there (see Can you put an Amazon link on an Instagram Reel?).

Instagram uses your Facebook trigger words and message by default. Turn that off on the Instagram card if you want Instagram to have its own words and its own message.

Do you need a separate DM tool for this?

Not for sending product links from comments. That's built in, on every post matched to one of your TikTok videos. If you already pay for a chat tool only to do this, we wrote up the options in ManyChat alternatives for Amazon affiliates.