How to Add a Link to an Instagram Story

Step by step

1. 1

   Convert your Instagram account to Business or Creator (if needed)

   Open the Instagram app, go to Settings, tap Account, and choose "Switch to Professional Account." Select Creator or Business and follow the prompts. As of June 2026, this is free and reversible, and it unlocks link stickers for most accounts along with scheduling APIs and analytics. If you already have a Business or Creator account, skip to step 2.

   Tip: Creator accounts suit individual content creators; Business accounts are better for brands that want Facebook Ads integration. Both support link stickers.

2. 2

   Build a trackable URL with the UTM builder

   Before you post, open the free SocialKit UTM builder and enter your destination URL, a campaign source (instagram), medium (story), and a campaign name that matches this specific Story or promotion. Copy the generated URL — this tagged link lets Google Analytics 4 attribute every click to this exact Story rather than lumping it into organic social.

   Tip: If your tagged URL looks unwieldy, paste it into a link shortener (Bitly or your own domain redirect) after building the UTM — Instagram Stories only display a small portion of the URL text on the sticker anyway.

3. 3

   Design your Story asset at the correct dimensions

   Create a vertical 9:16 image or video at 1080 × 1920 px. Reserve the middle third of the frame for your main visual — Instagram typically renders the link sticker in the lower half of the screen, and the top and bottom ~250 px can be obscured by the UI chrome. Check the Instagram Story size guide for current safe-zone recommendations, as of June 2026.

   Tip: A clear visual prompt near where the sticker will land ("Tap the link") drives meaningfully more clicks than a standalone sticker with no surrounding cue.

4. 4

   Schedule your Story reminder in SocialKit

   In SocialKit, open the composer, select your Instagram account, and choose Story as the post type. Upload your asset, add any caption notes or the UTM URL for your own reference, and pick a publish time using the best-time-to-post data for Instagram. As of June 2026, the Instagram API does not support fully automatic Story publishing for most accounts via third-party tools, so SocialKit will send a push notification to your phone at the scheduled time to remind you to post.

   Tip: Set the notification for 2–3 minutes before your intended go-live time to give yourself a moment to open the app and complete the post.

5. 5

   When the notification fires, open Instagram and create your Story

   Tap the SocialKit push notification and switch to the Instagram app. Open the Story camera and tap the gallery icon to select the pre-designed asset you saved to your phone. Alternatively, if you saved the image or video to your camera roll, access it directly from the Story upload screen.

6. 6

   Add the link sticker and paste your UTM URL

   Once your asset is loaded in the Story editor, tap the sticker icon (the square face or the smiley sticker icon, depending on your Instagram version — as of June 2026 it appears in the top toolbar). Search for "link" and select the Link sticker. Paste the trackable URL you built in step 2, then tap "Done." The sticker will appear on your Story; drag it to an uncluttered area and pinch to resize it.

   Tip: You can customise the sticker’s display text — instead of showing the raw URL, type a short call-to-action like "Read more" or "Shop now" so it is readable and enticing.

7. 7

   Publish and monitor clicks in your analytics

   Tap "Your Story" to publish. After 24 hours (when the Story expires) open Instagram Insights to see swipe-up or link-tap counts from inside the app. In parallel, check Google Analytics 4 for sessions attributed to the utm_source=instagram / utm_medium=story / utm_campaign values you set — GA4 gives you the full downstream behaviour (pages viewed, conversions) that Instagram Insights cannot.

Best practices

• Place the link sticker in the lower-centre of the frame, where thumbs naturally reach, and add a hand-drawn arrow or on-screen text pointing to it — the combination can lift tap rates noticeably versus a floating sticker alone.
• Use a single destination per Story rather than stacking multiple slides with different links; a focused ask performs better than a cluttered one.
• Build every Story link in the UTM builder before posting so you can attribute traffic precisely in GA4 — "social" referral traffic with no campaign detail is nearly unactionable for optimisation.
• Schedule your Story reminder for a time your audience is actively watching Stories; check /best-time-to-post/instagram as a starting point, then validate against your own account's Insights data.
• For product launches or promos, create the Story asset and UTM link at least 24 hours ahead and save both to a dedicated folder — last-minute link mistakes under notification pressure are common.
• Re-use the same UTM campaign slug across your Story series so you can aggregate campaign-level click data across multiple slides without losing per-slide detail.

Good to know

Do it in SocialKit