Instagram Follower Ads That Attract Buyers: Write Them From Your Clients' Own Words

A follower ad that attracts people ready to work with you, not just the curious, doesn’t come from brainstorming. It comes from research: what problems the people who already paid you have, how they describe them, and what holds them back. Then you build the ad out of their own sentences. That is how I wrote the ads and other direct response marketing that generated over 6 million zł (about $1.6 million), with single ads bringing in over 100,000 zł (about $27,000).

In the video above I walk through the whole process on one of our clients in the weight loss niche. Here are the key steps.

The account we work on

The client has around 130,000 followers, and over 34,000 conversations and 6,500 conversions in Setor’s database. We book over 1,500 qualified sales calls a month for them. With that many conversations you can see exactly which problems, goals and objections the people who convert have.

Step 1: start with what your buyers have in common

The first question isn’t “what should the ad be about”, it’s “what do the people who bought have in common”. On this account:

• Problem number one: snacking and hunger pangs, 21% of converters.
• Problem number two: unhappiness with their belly and figure, 13.2%.

We focus the ads on those two categories, because they most often end in a sale. Next to the numbers we have verbatim client quotes for each problem. That qualitative data is as valuable as the percentages, because we want to write in the client’s language.

Step 2: ad writing is research, not creativity

This is a paradigm shift. Instead of treating an ad as a creative process, treat it as a research process. You check what share of paying clients has a given problem and exactly which words they use. Then you take verbatim snippets of what the client wrote in a message or said on a sales call, so call transcripts help too.

The best ads I have written, the ones that brought in the most revenue, always contained the words of someone who joined the program.

That’s why I don’t recommend using AI to write ads the way most people do: “here’s my offer, I help people with this and that, write me five ads.” You get watered-down, generic copy that won’t resonate like something written by a person to a person, in the words people use to describe their own problems. If the ad should attract people like the ones who buy, write as if you were writing to a client right before they buy.

Step 3: filter out the merely curious inside the ad

The biggest risk with follower ads is attracting people who only want knowledge and tips on the topic and will never want to work with you. The ad should minimize curiosity follows and speak to how the person most likely to look for help with their goal thinks.

Setor’s analysis on this account showed that close to a quarter of the people Setor talked to on a weight loss profile weren’t actually looking to lose weight. That seriously limits growth, so the niche has to be precise in both the ads and the content. Out of six topics I pulled from the research, I picked one main angle: evening snacking.

Step 4: a story hook plus on-screen text

The ad opens with a line like:

I just finished a call with my client who, only 10 weeks ago, had a huge problem with evening snacking.

That one sentence does several things. It positions you as the expert, it adds a story hook so the person scrolling can immediately identify with the client, and it shows the transformation plus a specific, the 10 weeks.

Add a visual hook too, on-screen text like “why evening snacking is the hardest”. The person scrolling should see what the video is about in a split second.

Write freely first, whatever comes to mind. Only then go through each sentence and ask: how can I make it stronger, what do I add, remove or simplify?

Step 5: specifics instead of vague claims

“Dorota lost 12 kg before her daughter’s wedding, looked exactly the way she wanted to, and has kept her high school weight for the last two years” will usually work better than “Dorota lost weight for her daughter’s wedding and kept it off”. The exact kilos, the high school weight, the last two years: those details make the ad more believable.

Always base your marketing on the truth. Take real client stories and present them in the most accessible, attractive and persuasive way you can.

Step 6: check every word against the data

With problem number one covered, I add problem number two, the belly and figure. In the video I write a line about “three rules for a flat belly” and immediately check whether my words are my audience’s words:

• “Slim figure”: in the clients’ goals I find the quote “I’d like to lose about 7 kg without all the sacrifices and restrictions”, so “sacrifices and restrictions” go into the ad.
• “Yo-yo effect”: it shows up in conversations and is already in the copy.
• “Belly roll”: it comes up very often and wasn’t in the ad, so I look for a place for it.
• “Motivation” or “willpower”: “motivation” appears 14 times, “willpower” twice, so I use “motivation”.

Seven times more people say “motivation” than “willpower”. That level of detail is what lets you hit your ideal clients precisely. Collecting those quotes into a spreadsheet used to take me days of manual work. Today, with a tool like Setor, you have them at hand.

Step 7: an open loop and a call to action

Further into the ad: the client doesn’t have to cook every meal, rely on motivation or spend time at the gym. She just needs to learn to control her fullness, drink more sparkling water during the day and step on the scale every morning, intuitively adjusting her portions.

“Learn to control her fullness” is left unanswered on purpose. The viewer asks: fine, but how? That’s an open loop. It creates a need to find out, so people follow the profile to get the same set of rules that helped the woman in the ad.

The bio closes the follow with a call to action, for example: DM me “STOP BELLY ROLL” to get my three rules for a flat belly.

Step 8: step away and read it out loud

Finally, take a break, come back to the ad and read it out loud. You’ll see what still doesn’t fit. The more work you put into polishing your ads, the more clearly they’ll outperform the rest of your ads and your competitors’, because your audience will feel you understand them.

A side effect: your sales calls get better too. You can describe the offer, the result and the problem exactly the way the client feels it, for example that she can’t wear the dresses she’d like to because she doesn’t like how she looks.

FAQ

How do I write a follower ad on Instagram? Start with data on your buyers: what problems they have, what share has each one and which words they use. Build the ad from their quotes, open with a client story and on-screen text, add specifics and an open loop, and put a call to action in your bio.

Can I write ads with AI? Asking “write me five ads” gets you generic copy. AI is useful for collecting and organizing quotes from conversations, but the words in the ad should come from your clients.

How do I limit followers who only want tips? Keep the niche in the ad precise: the one problem that most often ends in a sale, described in the words of people who bought, instead of a broad topic that pulls in everyone who’s interested.

What is an open loop in an ad? A line that raises a question and deliberately leaves it unanswered, like “learn to control her fullness”. To get the answer, the viewer follows the profile.

Where the numbers come from

• 130,000 followers, over 34,000 conversations, 6,500 conversions, over 1,500 calls a month, 21% and 13.2%, close to a quarter not interested in weight loss, 14 to 2 for “motivation” and “willpower”: one Setor client account in the weight loss niche, shown in the video from October 28, 2026. The quotes are translated from Polish. Your numbers will differ.
• Over 6 million zł and over 100,000 zł from single ads: my results from ads and direct response marketing for high-ticket offers.
• Dorota and Ola: example ad lines written live in the video, not a finished campaign.
• Dollar amounts: converted at 3.7 zł per dollar and rounded down.

Want Setor to run conversations with your followers, book qualified sales calls and show you what your clients say? Start now. To see where follower ads fit into your whole content plan, read the four pillars of an Instagram content strategy.