Plain-language definitions of the terms behind Instagram recipe automation — from comment-to-DM and the 24-hour messaging window to recipe schema. Each term links to a stable anchor so it can be referenced directly.
- Active contact
- A unique follower who received at least one DM from a creator's account in a given calendar month. Cookping plans are priced by monthly active contacts rather than by follower count or message volume.
- Automation
- A rule linking an Instagram post or Reel and a trigger keyword to a recipe, so matching comments receive that recipe.
- Caption
- The text a creator writes under an Instagram post or Reel. Captions usually tell followers which keyword to comment to receive the recipe (for example “Comment RECIPE and I'll DM it to you”).
- Click-through rate (CTR)
- The share of delivered recipe DMs whose link was actually opened. A low CTR with high deliveries usually means the message copy or the button label needs work.
- Consent (messaging consent)
- Instagram only allows a business to DM a user who has interacted first through an eligible entry point. A comment alone is not full consent: features like follow-status checks require the follower to have tapped a message button or replied in the conversation.
- Delivery
- One recipe DM sent (or attempted) to one follower in response to one matched comment. Cookping records every delivery with its outcome: sent, waiting, skipped, or expired.
- DM automation
- Software that sends Instagram direct messages automatically in response to follower actions such as comments, using Meta's official messaging APIs. Distinct from bots that automate personal accounts, which violate Instagram's terms.
- Email capture
- An optional block on a public recipe page where a reader can leave their email address, letting creators build an owned audience beyond Instagram.
- Engagement rate
- Interactions (likes, comments, saves, shares) divided by reach or followers, expressed as a percentage. Comment-triggered recipes raise engagement because every recipe request is a comment.
- Expired delivery
- A recipe DM that was never sent because Instagram's 24-hour messaging window closed before it could go out. Compliant tools mark these as expired and skip them instead of sending late.
- Follow-gating
- An optional step that asks a follower to follow the creator before the final recipe link is sent.
- Follow request message
- The DM sent when follow-gating is on and the commenter doesn't follow the creator yet. It asks them to follow, then reply, to receive the recipe link.
- Follower
- An Instagram user who has subscribed to a creator's account. Non-followers can also comment on public posts, which is why follow-gating exists as an option.
- Food creator
- A person who publishes food and recipe content as an audience business — on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, or a blog — and monetizes through brand deals, ads, products, or subscriptions.
- Idempotency
- The guarantee that one comment from one follower produces at most one delivery, even if a webhook is received more than once.
- Ingredient catalog
- Cookping's bilingual (English and French) index of common ingredients. It matches a creator's wording — accents included — to a canonical ingredient so recipes get consistent icons while keeping the creator's original text.
- Instagram professional account
- A business or creator account on Instagram. Only professional accounts can use Meta's messaging APIs, so comment-to-DM tools require one; personal accounts are not supported.
- Keyword matching
- How an automation decides a comment qualifies: the comment text contains the trigger keyword, compared case-insensitively so “Recipe”, “recipe”, and “RECIPE” all match.
- Link in bio
- The single clickable URL Instagram allows in a profile, often pointing to a landing page listing many links. Comment-to-DM delivery bypasses the bio bottleneck by sending each follower the exact link they asked for.
- Messaging entry point
- An interaction that opens (or reopens) a business's permission to DM a user on Instagram — such as the user sending a message or tapping a button inside an existing conversation. Entry points start the 24-hour messaging window.
- Meta messaging API
- The official Meta platform API that lets approved apps send and receive Instagram direct messages for professional accounts. Using it (rather than automating a logged-in account) is what keeps DM automation within Instagram's terms.
- Noindex
- A robots directive that asks search engines not to include a page in results. Cookping creators can switch their public recipe pages to noindex if they prefer recipes to be reachable only by direct link.
- Opening message
- The first DM a follower receives after their comment matches an automation. It contains a button the follower taps to confirm they want the recipe — creating the consent Instagram requires before links or follow checks.
- Permalink
- The permanent public URL of an Instagram post or Reel. Recipe pages can link back to the original post through its permalink.
- Private reply
- Meta's mechanism for a business to respond to a specific comment with one direct message. It is how a comment can legitimately start a DM conversation with someone who never messaged the account.
- Public reply
- The short comment an automation can post publicly under the follower's comment (for example “Sent you a DM!”). It confirms the DM went out and shows other viewers the keyword works.
- Reach
- The number of unique accounts that saw a post or Reel. Comment-to-DM tactics tend to increase reach because comments signal engagement to Instagram's ranking systems.
- Recipe hub
- A creator's collection of published recipe pages, managed in one dashboard and delivered through automations — an alternative to hosting recipes on a separate blog.
- Recipe import (AI import)
- Turning pasted recipe text or an Instagram post link into a structured draft recipe — title, ingredients, steps, times — using an AI parser, instead of retyping it field by field.
- Recipe link button
- The tappable button inside the recipe DM that opens the recipe page. Buttons get measurably higher click-through than raw pasted URLs.
- Recipe page
- A public, mobile-first page for a single recipe that followers can read, save, and share without an account.
- Recipe rich results
- Google's enhanced recipe listings — with photo, rating, and cook time — shown for pages that publish schema.org/Recipe structured data. Cookping emits this markup automatically on indexable recipe pages.
- Recipe schema (schema.org/Recipe)
- The standard structured-data vocabulary for describing a recipe (ingredients, instructions, times, yield) in machine-readable form, used by search engines and AI assistants to understand recipe pages.
- Reel
- Instagram's short-form vertical video format. Reels are the highest-reach surface for food content, which makes them the most common place to run comment-to-DM recipe automations.
- Saves
- The Instagram action of bookmarking a post to revisit later. Saves are a strong ranking signal, and recipes are among the most-saved content categories on the platform.
- Trigger keyword
- The word a follower comments (such as “recette” or “menu”) that tells Cookping which recipe to send.
- 24-hour messaging window
- Instagram's rule that a business may only send a DM within 24 hours of the user's most recent inbound message or eligible interaction. Compliant automation tools re-check the window immediately before every send — including retries — and expire deliveries that miss it.
- Webhook
- A real-time notification Meta sends to an app when something happens — such as a new comment or DM. Webhooks are how automations react within seconds instead of polling.