Instagram Ads success story · Business coaching academy

How a business coaching academy grew revenue 2.2X with Instagram ads that qualify leads in the chat.

Name: Overtop Media Digital Marketing
Address: 933 Louise Ave Suite 101-18, Charlotte, NC, 28204, US
Telephone: (704) 237-0707
Price range: $$

Authority Income Accelerator teaches online coaches and small business owners how to market and scale. Its ads opened Instagram Direct conversations faster than a small sales team could handle them. Automated questions and lead tags sorted the serious prospects first, and revenue and return on ad spend climbed.

Business: Authority Income Accelerator
Market: United States
Goal: Qualified leads, booked sales calls and revenue

Woman in a plaid blazer on a video call at a laptop on a long wooden table

The results.

Both compared with the company’s usual performance. November 2024 was one of the best-performing months since it began tracking its ads across Meta apps in March 2022.

2.2Xincrease in total revenue
57%increase in return on ad spend

The company’s own tracking, as published by Meta, for November 2024. Results are self-reported by the advertiser.

The challenge.

Authority Income Accelerator sells marketing and growth strategies to online business coaches and small business owners who want to build their brands. It promotes its programs with content on Instagram and ads that open a conversation in Instagram Direct.

The ads worked, which created a new problem. A small sales team received a constant stream of new conversations and struggled to keep up. Serious prospects waited in the same inbox as casual browsers, with no quick way to tell them apart.

Ad opens a chatInstagram ads to adults 22 to 50 open Instagram Direct.
Lead picks a keywordA menu choice such as Scale or Roadmap sets the path.
Automated questionsThe answers tag each lead automatically.
Salesperson follows upQualified leads get a link to book a sales call.

What they did.

Ads that click to Instagram Direct · Automated replies and lead tagging · Retargeting

Ads that open a conversation: Ads ran on Instagram to adults aged 22 to 50, both to new prospects and as retargeting. A tap on an ad that clicks to message opened a chat in Instagram Direct.
Pick a path: Each new lead chose a keyword from a menu, such as Scale or Roadmap, to say what they wanted.
Automatic qualifying questions: An automated reply acknowledged their interest and asked a few simple questions. Each lead was tagged by their answers.
A person follows up: A salesperson reviewed the tagged lead, followed up in the same chat and, if the lead qualified, sent a booking link for a sales call. Every lead’s status was tracked internally.

Why it worked.

Our read on the decisions behind the numbers, and what any business can take from them.

Automation sorts, people sell: Automated questions handled the first minute of every chat, so salespeople spent their time on qualified prospects, not on repeating the same answers.
The prospect chooses the topic: A keyword menu let each lead say what they cared about, so the follow-up started from their problem, not a generic pitch.
The call is booked in the thread: Sending a booking link inside the conversation removed the drop-off that happens between a chat and a calendar.
Retargeting keeps leads warm: High-ticket programs are rarely bought on the first visit. Retargeting people who had already engaged brought them back when they were ready.

How we would run this play for your business.

You do not need a national budget to use the same ideas. This is how Overtop Media Digital Marketing puts them to work in our instagram ads management.

A qualifying chat flow: We write the menu, questions and tags so every conversation is sorted before your team sees it, for coaches, consultants, agencies and B2B services.
Hand-off to a calendar: Qualified leads get a booking link in the chat, and the booked call lands in your CRM with the ad that produced it.
Judge the ads on sales calls: We report on booked calls and closed deals, not message counts, through our Instagram ads management.
Pair it with search: Prospects who chat with you often look you up. Our Google Ads management makes sure they find you.