From Engineering Student to $10,000 With Monetag and Instagram [Case Study]
How do you imagine a student? Someone broke, armed with instant noodles and boring side jobs? Well, it doesn’t have to be like that.
Take our publisher, the star of today’s case study. Back in his engineering student days, he started testing online monetization instead of running between lectures and temporary gigs. Now, he works at a gaming company, with his passive income still bringing in money.
So forget about boring, exhausting side hustles: student life can look very different.
About the Publisher
Our publisher runs an Instagram account with the help of 2 freelancers and a couple of AI tools. The account is all about Reels: gaming-themed videos with useful codes, lifehacks, or updates info. The videos generate millions of views, and hundreds of thousands of followers:
To monetize this crazy traffic volume, he utilizes Monetag Smartlink in a rather unusual, unexpected, and very witty way. So read on to learn how he makes it work.
Why Instagram?
A legit enough question: it’s not the easiest traffic source to boost. Look:
- Only around 3,5% followers see your posts
- The competition is harsh – there are millions of Reels
- The overall user engagement has declined
So, of course, we asked – Why Instagram?
Here is what our publisher replied:
I started researching how websites make money online and learned about Google AdSense. Using this knowledge, I built a gaming-related website, as I am a gamer myself and had strong domain knowledge of the gaming industry.
After a few months, I successfully got the website approved for AdSense. However, I soon realized that SEO is slow and difficult to scale, especially for someone who wants faster results.
That’s when I started exploring social media and switched to Instagram: TikTok is banned in my сountry, while Instagram is allowed and has a massive user base, with Reels allowing fast viral reach.
And Instagram did bring quick results: within 2 months, our publisher grew his first Instagram page to 100,000 followers, who immediately started generating significant traffic volumes.
How to Get Instagram Traffic?
No general advice here: just a step-by-step guide from our publisher. Will it work out for you, too? Probably, but you’ll have to experiment to see.
Step 1. Choose the right niche
Our publisher chose gaming because he had deep knowledge and a genuine interest in the niche. As he puts it, content creation becomes difficult and inconsistent without niche expertise.
Step 2: Content Planning
The publisher creates, how he calls it, faceless Instagram gaming videos with AI voiceovers. He doesn’t show his face, despite many saying that you need to be on camera to succeed. And, see – it works, his content gets viral without following TikTok trend dances.
The content mixes fun and interaction:
- Part of the posts share game tips, codes, and updates
- The others are quizzes where users answer quick gaming-related questions in comments
To keep the content up to date, he uses various official gaming pages and tracks in-game events. Additionally, his coding background enabled him to develop his own internal tool. It works like this: you enter any keyword, and it fetches the latest related content from the last 24 hours from Google, Reddit, Twitter, and YouTube. Minimum of manual job!
Each reel follows a strict structure:
- First 3-4 seconds: Hook + curiosity + suspense
- Middle: Value-driven content
- End: Clear CTA (subscribe/like, etc.)
Step 3. Content creation
The publisher handles all planning and strategy alone, and outsources editing to only two freelancers. He also pays for an AI voice-over subscription and one Instagram automation tool, which we’ll mention later.
I initially spent 3-4 hours daily on Instagram (learning, setup, experimentation), now it takes a maximum of 2 hours per day. I plan all content at night, send it to editors, and spend only 10-20 minutes the next day uploading.
Step 4: Consistency
The publisher started by uploading 1 reel per day consistently for 3 months, and it helped him grow from 0 to 100k followers in just 2 months. And he continues to follow the same path now, adhering to his posting plan.
Step 5: Analytics-Based Optimization
As the publisher says, you need to always analyze performance after you post a video. Here is what you should check:
- Skip rate
- Watch time
- Shares and comments
- Follower vs. non-follower reach
Here is how it looks on Instagram:
Based on this knowledge, you can plan your further content: for example, if watch time is below 30%, our publisher considers the reel non-performing. If it’s above 30%, he scales similar content because Instagram pushes it to a similar audience again.
Step 6. Boost It!
When a post shows great performance organically, the publisher sometimes scales it with Meta Ads. This helps bring in more views and sends more people to his Monetag Smartlinks. He mainly promotes posts that already perform well, so the ads are used to grow results, not to test new content.
How to Monetize Instagram with SmartLinks?
Now, the top secret revealed: all this valuable traffic is sent to Monetag Smartlinks directly. However, it’s not just a ‘check a link in my bio’. The recipe looks like this:
- The publisher regularly posts engagement-based gaming Reels with basic game questions. For example, he shows part of a gun and asks which weapon it is from.
- Users comment on the Reel to answer the questions.
- A special automation tool – remember, we mentioned it above? – sends a DM to each person who left a comment. The DM contains a Smartlink.
Smart, right?
The Results So Far
As you’ve seen from the case study’s name, our publisher has reached a $10,000 profit within 8 months. Let’s break down the numbers a bit and share some proof.
Here are his overall earnings:
As the publisher earns exclusively through Smartlinks, all earnings appear in the first line under the Onclick label. In Monetag statistics, Smartlinks are displayed this way.
Now for the real highlight: how views actually convert into money. The publisher shared earnings from his best-performing videos. At peak performance, the numbers were:
- 250,000 impressions = $332 in one day
- 232,000 impressions = $337 in one day
The most profitable month was July 2025, when he earned $3,209.88.
Instead of the Summary: Quick Questions To The Publisher
Q: What kind of content gets the most attention?
A: Value-driven content performs the best. When users learn something useful, they engage more, trust the creator, and become long-term followers. This trust directly impacts traffic quality and monetization performance.
Q: What advice would you give to new publishers?
A: Be consistent, always analyze performance, and never post without a plan. Every piece of content should include a strong hook, an emotional connection in the middle, and a clear CTA at the end. Without a strategy, you’ll waste time and end up thinking, ‘This doesn’t work,’ when in reality, the execution was the problem.
Q: Why did you choose Monetag to monetize your traffic?
A: Before Monetag, I tested three other monetization platforms. Each had issues like payment delays, policy mismatches, and poor customer service. Monetag stood out because of reliable payments, quick support, and a dedicated personal manager who actively helps you. That’s why I moved all my traffic to Monetag.
