How I Built an Automated Acquisition Engine for Monzy in 48 Hours?
Building a community from scratch is notoriously difficult. The "build it and they will come" approach rarely works anymore.
For Monzy, we knew we needed a community of power users, but we didn't want to rely on manual, unscalable efforts to get it off the ground.
The Community Hypothesis
The goal was simple: Create a self-sustaining, automated funnel using short-form video, intelligent auto-DMs, and automated content curation to build a highly engaged community.
Here is a full breakdown of the experiment, the tech stack we used, and the results I achieved in just 48 hours.
1. Defining the Audience: The "Credit Card Gurus"
Before building the funnel, we had to narrow down who we wanted in the community. We didn't just want average spenders; we wanted the influencers within their own friend groups.
I targeted the "Techy/Finance Gurus"—the people who hold multiple premium cards, have high ad/tax spends, and are constantly asked by their peers, "Which credit card should I get?" These users love to flex their knowledge. By bringing them into the Monzy ecosystem and providing them with exclusive, automated intel, we could turn them into powerful word-of-mouth advocates.
2. The Tech Stack & Funnel
We wanted a low-friction, low-maintenance setup. Here is the stack we used:
• Top of Funnel (Discovery): Instagram Reels
• Engagement Automation: Manychat (Auto-reply & DM)
• Community Platform: Telegram (Low tech barrier, easy to moderate)
• Content Automation: Pabbly Connect
The User Journey:
1. The Hook: User discovers our Reel on Instagram.
2. The Action: The Reel prompts them to drop a specific comment to get the community link.
3. The Automation: a manychat alternative instantly replies to their comment and sends the Telegram invite link directly to their DMs.
4. The Retention: Once they join the Telegram group, they are greeted by a Pabbly-automated news feed that scrapes the web every morning for credit card hacks, devaluation news, and benefits updates.
Why it worked?
For the Reel, we tested topical ideas (like the dhurandhar ticket hacks) but ultimately doubled down on a B2B Credit Card Hack- free flight on business spends.
The Reel focused on generating rewards from heavy B2B expenses like Ad Spends and GST Payments.
Why this worked: It acted as a natural filter. Only business owners, freelancers, or high-net-worth individuals making significant tax/ad payments would care about this. It perfectly attracted the exact "power user" persona we wanted for Monzy, weeding out the casual audience.
The Results: First 48 Hours of Data
The Reel broke out of my standard algorithm views.
View Velocity & Reach
- Total Views: 10,232 (9,493 on IG, 739 on FB)
- Accounts Reached: 7,932
- The "Views Over Time" graph shows a massive, steep spike compared to our typical baseline of ~2K views.
- Algorithm Push: 74.5% of views came directly from the Reels Tab, proving the content strongly resonated with non-followers and the algorithm kept pushing it.
Retention & Watch Time
• Total Watch Time: 1d 8h 36m
• Average Watch Time: 14 seconds
• Skip Rate: Dropped to 27.9% (compared to our account's typical 39.0%).
Because the hook was relevant and curiosity driven, people stayed to watch the explanation.
The Engagement Engine
The Call-to-Action to "comment for the link" created a viral engagement loop.
• Total Interactions: 827
• Saves: 171 (High intent to remember the hack)
• Shares: 197 (Word-of-mouth in action)
• Comments: 260 (This is the most important metric, as it triggered 130 automated DMs, otherw were replies).
The Conversions
From those 130 comments/DMs generated over roughly 48 hours, 43 users successfully joined the Telegram channel. That is a highly targeted, niche audience of power-spenders acquired for free, now sitting in a channel receiving automated daily value via Pabbly.
Key Takeaways
1. Niche Content > Broad Appeal: Targeting a specific B2B use-case (GST/Ad spend) didn't limit our reach; it actually triggered the algorithm to find the exact right audience, resulting in higher retention (27.9% skip rate) and high saves/shares.
2. Frictionless Conversion: Making users comment for the link boosts algorithmic reach while simultaneously qualifying the user. By the time they hit the DM, their intent is sky-high.
3. Zero-Maintenance Community: By piping automated news into Telegram via Pabbly, the community provides immediate, daily value without requiring a human community manager to constantly post updates.