How Zohran Mamdami Engaged A Grassroots Army Using Automation with Gabbi Zutrau, the campaign’s Chatbot Wizard | Hello Merge Tag Ep. 38

“You don’t want to be caught in that high volume moment and not have a way to capture people, not have a way or a plan to funnel people from Instagram onto your owned list.”

You might not recognize today’s guest by name, but you’ve seen her work in action.

Gabbi Zutrau is a freelance digital consultant in the progressive space, with clients ranging from MoveOn to Stop AAPI Hate. She’s also the creator of Edna the Runt, an adorable pup who anchors her own lively social community with a ton of followers and massive engagement.

As an independent digital consultant, Gabbi built the Zohran Mamdani campaign’s chatbot automation infrastructure during his recent New York City mayoral primary campaign. By deploying Manychat automations, she played a pivotal role in turning social engagement into real-world impact—helping Mamdani defeat Andrew Cuomo and his billionaire backers.

It was low-cost, high-scale organizing in action.

Throughout our conversation, we cover:

• Building ladders of engagement that nurture supporters step-by-step from interest to action

• Differences in how automation can be deployed for campaigns versus advocacy groups

• Using automation to support fundraising, volunteer recruitment, and event sign‑ups

• Leveraging automation to lean into — rather than try to fight — the endless scroll and capture attention

• The role of engagement bait—and how ManyChat flows can avoid feeling spammy while maintaining their effectiveness

• And more!

📊 Some key metrics from the campaign:

• Over 77,000 automated messages sent across comment, DM and Story flows
• 20,000+ clicks generated directly from Instagram DMs
• 3,000+ emails collected via in-app conversation flows
• A 76% click-through rate on trigger-word comment flows
• All achieved for roughly $318 total—about $0.03 per action

In a world where “link in bio” gets ignored and the platforms are designed to keep people scrolling, this campaign shows what’s possible when you meet supporters where they are—and have a plan to keep them engaged, both online and off..

Tune in to hear how campaigns can—and should—embrace automation to turn online momentum into real-world organizing power.