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What Instagram creators actually put in their link in bio

By Matt Gira 4 min read

For all creators, getting views on your content is one thing. Getting people to take action on your content for sponsorship, affiliates, or your own products is another.

Historically, you've always wanted people to go to your link in bio. With tools like ManyChat these days, your link in bio might not be as important but these links are still important because they act as your call to action (CTA) on your profile.

How many links are they actually using? What is on the pages those links lead to? Are they trying to get people to their newsletter?

This and more I researched over 57 creators ranging from all sorts of industries and backgrounds. Some trends were quite obvious and a couple of things surprised me.

How I did this

I reviewed 57 public creator profiles all on Instagram. Every creator has at least 10,000 followers.

Each profile was coded for what was in the bio slot, where every one of those links went, and what was on the page behind it. Claude helped with the coding, data processing, and built the graphics. I spot-checked the results against the live profiles and the writing and the conclusions are mine.

Bar chart titled "Half of creators use just one link". Number of links occupying the bio slot across 57 Instagram creator profiles, all with at least 10,000 followers. 1 link, 51 percent, 29 of 57. 2 links, 18 percent, 10 of 57. 3 links, 11 percent, 6 of 57. 4 links, 11 percent, 6 of 57. 5 links, 11 percent, 6 of 57.

Even with the ability to have 5 total links, creators are using only one from the profile view. However, this is misleading.

Many of the creators I looked at had a links page as one of their links. A links page is a page whose whole purpose of existing is to just be a list of links that a creator wants their audience to check out. It's similar to the 5 links Instagram gives you but uncapped and you can brand it however you like.

Bar chart titled "Creators are using the five links like website headers". All 120 bio links by what opens when you tap them. A list of other links, 32 percent, 38 of 120. Something the creator sells, 25 percent, 30 of 120. A sponsor or an affiliate link, 14 percent, 17 of 120. A free offer or a newsletter, 9 percent, 11 of 120. The creator's own website, 6 percent, 7 of 120. Another social profile, 6 percent, 7 of 120. A video or an archive of content, 4 percent, 5 of 120. Press or an about page, 2 percent, 2 of 120. Other, 2 percent, 3 of 120.

38 out of 57 (67%) creators I looked at had a links page as one of their 5 links. If they had more than one Instagram link, they typically treated the links similar to how you might think about the heading links on your website. A few main links that then link out to more pages or act as a dropdown. In this case, a Linktree is a good equivalent of a dropdown.

Bar chart titled "Two thirds of multi-link creators keep a links page in the slot". The 28 creators who use two or more bio links, by whether one of those links opens a links page. Yes, 64 percent, 18 of 28. No, 36 percent, 10 of 28.

18 of the 28 (64%) who had more than one link had one of those links as a links page.

An example is below:

Screenshot of the Instagram Links panel for creator Gigi Robinson, showing five links. The first, highlighted in green, is labelled "all my links" and points to linktr.ee/itsgigirobinson. The other four are gigirobinson.com, Hosts of Influence, an Adobe Acrobat affiliate link, and her Facebook page.
Bar chart titled "The typical creator has 9 links, not 1". Total links a creator has reachable from their profile, counting bio slots plus the links page behind one of them, across 37 creators. Median 9, mean 11.9, range 4 to 39. 4 to 6 links, 14 percent, 5 of 37. 7 to 9 links, 41 percent, 15 of 37. 10 to 15 links, 30 percent, 11 of 37. 16 to 19 links, 5 percent, 2 of 37. 20 or more links, 11 percent, 4 of 37.

This caught me off guard. I thought it would be an average or a median of like three links. I've always thought that we want our audiences to keep their focus on our main things. That could be one product and your newsletter.

Obviously, I was wrong. 9 links is the median and it didn't seem to change with categories at first glance. I didn't measure by category with this small sample size.

Bar chart titled "What links pages open with". The topmost link on each of the 38 links pages read in full. Something the creator sells, 45 percent, 17 of 38. A sponsor or affiliate link, 21 percent, 8 of 38. Content, a social profile or a website, 21 percent, 8 of 38. A free offer or a newsletter, 11 percent, 4 of 38. No label to read, 3 percent, 1 of 38.

25 of 38 links pages open with something sold directly from the creator or one of their sponsors or affiliates.

It was interesting to see creators having sponsors on their links page. That feels like such an easy add on to sponsorship deals. That probably should have been more obvious to me but I was like "that's so smart" the more I saw it.

Half of creators are not collecting emails

I'm a big advocate for any entrepreneur having their own newsletter, especially for creators so they have more control over who sees their content and getting in touch with their audience.

However, it was clear not everyone felt as strongly.

It was a 50/50 toss up if a creator was sending their audience to a newsletter.

Bar chart titled "Half of creators are not collecting emails". Whether a visitor can hand over their email anywhere along the path, meaning the bio links plus the links page behind them, across 57 Instagram creator profiles. Yes, 51 percent, 29 of 57. No, 49 percent, 28 of 57.

To me, that's a huge risk for the creators that have a no. Even if they don't send regular content through that newsletter, it's such a safety valve if content isn't hitting for a few months or for some reason your profile gets banned temporarily.

The short version: it's okay to have a bunch of links in your profile, just organize like you would a website header. Main links in the Instagram 5 links and one of them can be a link to everything you can imagine. In my opinion, one of those 5 links should always be your own newsletter.