Your targeting tells Kicksta which audience you want to reach. šÆ
From the Targeting page, you can add accounts and hashtags as sources, adjust your audience filters, and review how each source performs.
You must set up your targeting before your growth can start.
How Sources Work
A source is an Instagram account or hashtag that helps Kicksta find potential followers for your profile.
You can choose between two types:
Accounts: Kicksta finds potential followers among the users following that account. Choose businesses, creators, or competitors whose audiences may be interested in your content.
Hashtags: Kicksta finds users who have included that hashtag in their posts. Choose hashtags relevant to your niche, products, or services.
Your sources and audience filters work together: sources identify the audience to explore, and filters narrow down which users Kicksta can interact with.
For example, adding a fitness account gives Kicksta an audience of people interested in fitness. Your filters then help select users from that audience who match your settings.
You can open this explanation in your dashboard by clicking How it works next to Sources.
How to Add a Source
Open the Targeting page.
Find the Sources section and click Add source.
Enter an account or hashtag in the Search accounts or hashtags field, or choose an account from Suggestions.
Select your source and click Add source to confirm.
You can add up to 10 sources on our Growth plan or up to 30 sources on the Advanced plan. The counter beside Sources shows how many youāre currently using.
The suggested accounts come from Instagramās similar-account recommendations. Review them before adding them to make sure their audiences are relevant to your profile.
Set Your Audience Filters
In the Audience filters section, click Edit filters to refine the types of users you want to reach.
The available settings include:
Following: How many accounts a user follows.
Followers: How many followers a user has.
Posts: How many posts a user has published.
Account privacy: Public or private account preferences.
Gender filter: Your preferred audience setting.
Exclude NSFW: Whether to exclude accounts identified as containing adult or explicit content.
For more guidance, see our audience filters guide.
Monitor Your Sources
The Sources section displays your account and hashtag targets, their statuses, and their recorded results.
You may see these statuses:
Running: The source is currently being used.
Queued: The source is waiting to be used.
Depleted: The source has run out of available users for the system to target.
Archived: The source has been removed from rotation.
The Followbacks Rate column shows how many users followed you back through each source and its follow-back percentage.
Click a source to view more details, including:
Followed: The number of users followed through that source.
Followbacks: The number of recorded followbacks.
Rate: The sourceās follow-back percentage.
Recent activity: Recent activity associated with that source.
Followback data takes time to develop, so allow recent interactions time to produce results before judging a sourceās performance.
Best Practices for Choosing Sources
Choose sources based on how closely their audiences match the people you want to reach.
Prioritize relevance. Accounts and hashtags should relate to your content, niche, or services.
Consider account size. Accounts with 20,000ā250,000 followers can be a useful starting point, but audience relevance matters more than size alone.
Add several relevant sources. This gives Kicksta more potential users to reach as individual sources become depleted.
Monitor follow-back rates. Aim for 10% or higher as a general benchmark, while allowing enough time and interactions to assess results.
Refresh your setup regularly. Archive underperforming sources and add fresh ones that better match your audience.
For more advice, see our best practices for choosing the right targets.
Archiving and Restoring Sources
Archiving removes a source from rotation while preserving its performance history. This is useful when you want to stop using a source without losing its recorded results.
To archive a source, open its details and select the archive option.
To restore an archived source:
Open the Archived tab in the Sources section.
Select the source you want to restore.
Click Restore source.
Restoring returns the source to your active list. Its ability to generate further activity depends on whether it has available users to target.