Competition is hot in the world of digital, we’re all aware of that.
Facebook CPMs are increasing. Amazon is competitive as it is. Every ad channel is becoming more challenging with so many more companies advertising.
It’s getting harder to achieve awesome and consistent ROAS/ROI results.
Ad channels such as Facebook Ads and Google Ads are great. However, you need to do more when it comes to driving conversions.
Everyone can run ads. Everyone can build beautiful-looking landing pages. So, what can you do to stand out in the noise?
There’s something your competition can’t easily reproduce or replicate, which in turn helps you stand out and helps you drive more conversions - and that is social proof.
Great social proof helps you cut through the noise.
And guess what, this ‘FOMO’ (Fear of missing out) marketing technique is not just related to paid ads specific campaigns. The concept of social proof relates to all forms of inbound marketing channels, landing pages, campaigns and initiatives where you want to drive more sales, email signups, and other conversion-focused goals.
You may already have reviews and UGC on your website, but what strategies and tactics can you use to stand out to new visitors and potential customers? I’ve got the answer, so keep reading on.
Social proof tools can accelerate consumer confidence no matter the source of traffic your visitors or customers come through (organic search, ads, email marketing, etc).
You can leverage the hard work of your customers' praise of your products through reviews, UGC, videos & more.
I can say from my experience using some of these providers below has certainly assisted with boosting conversion rates for many of my campaigns across product pages and landing pages.
The monthly/yearly investment, which is pretty cost-effective for all the apps mentioned below, is well worth it in terms of ROI.
So, which tools are best to help you achieve more conversions?
Before we get into the list, here are some items to consider and use as a checklist when evaluating.
These are some baseline questions to think about. Again, every business is different, so you may have other factors to consider.
Okay, let’s do it, everyone. Let’s get right into top social proof software recommendations.
The FOMO app is on top of my list of social proof software for a good reason. Probably the best user experience in my opinion, and the customisation options for this powerful social proof tool make it unique.
For example, when a user purchases from your website, the Fomo app uses the real time notifications feature, which shows a message on the screen to current users.
With the Fomo theme builder, website owners can use specific CSS features to customise and design their website's theme while also using control features to limit what elements visitors can see.
Fomo offers functions that automatically convert notifications and popups to a different language based on the location your potential customers could come from. Twenty-nine languages can be translated using Fomo. Additionally, the platform tracks user behaviour on the website and sends out alluring notifications to help increase sales.
Pricing:
FOMO's plans are divided into four categories: Starter ($19/month), Essential ($39/month), Plus ($79/month), and Advanced ($100/month).
Proof is a well-known social proof tool that more than 25k+ websites trust. I love using this platform, and it’s definitely one of my top 3 choices.
It offers numerous options for customising your social proof notifications, such as how long to display messages and which pages they should appear on.
Using this social proof marketing tool, you can choose the best time of year to collect data. For instance, you can display conversions from the previous day, the last week, or even the last month.
Users can deliver personalised online experiences to website visitors through Proof Experiences. You can also run A/B split tests for all types of notifications across multiple landing pages. The analytics suite is pretty awesome and really clean.
Pricing:
Aside from the 14-day free trial, there are Basic ($29/month), Business ($129/month), Premium ($199/month), Platinum ($299/month), and Enterprise, which you can request a demo from the website.
Elfsight is another top favourite of mine due to the sheer amount of options for embeddable widgets, integrations and ways to display social proof.
Elfsight provides a variety of options for merchants and SaaS companies to incorporate online reviews and UGC into their websites to demonstrate the authenticity of the products and services offered.
Businesses and startups can share their products' positive performance by collecting and displaying reviews from other social media platforms such as Instagram and Twitter, as well as eCommerce platforms such as Amazon. By enabling the G2 reviews widget, software companies can display the reviews of their software products.
A photo gallery and a YouTube gallery widget show off one's products' images and how-to manuals, respectively.
Consumers can conveniently ask for clarification about products or services using the available chat option. Additionally, a FAQ widget lists the typical questions about your products, making it more straightforward for visitors to find answers.
Pricing:
There are two categories of subscriptions. In the Single App category, there are three types of plans along with a free program, Basic ($5/month), Pro ($10/month), and Enterprise ($25/month). In the All Apps Pack category, there are three plans, Basic Pack ($15/month), Pro Pack ($30/month), and Enterprise Pack ($75/month).
Repuso is a popular social proof tool that makes it simple to display endorsements and reviews on your website. Not only that, it’s an app to help you gather and collect customer testimonials through using their widgets.
Within your dashboard, this is where you can organise and select which reviews and testimonials to display on your website. Repuso incorporates reviews from your social media profiles. After linking your accounts, the platform will collect reviews about your products and instantly displays them on your websites.
Once you’ve done the above, this is where the fun begins. There are several ways to show off your social proof and put it to work. You can easily create review grids, inline reviews, sliders for photo reviews, floating badges, and floating widgets.
You can also impose your own rules on Repuso's methods for gathering customer reviews. It includes useful widgets you can use to request that customers leave reviews about your products and services.
Pricing:
Repuso offers three paid plans in annual plans: Basic ($9 per month), Enhanced ($19 per month), and Agency ($23 per month) with a 10-day free trial.
ProveSource is an app that uses the power of pop-up notifications to display the stats of recent sales and stocks to your visitors, thus creating urgency and invisibly enticing them to purchase products.
ProveSource is pretty simple to set up. You can display authenticated purchases, activities, and conversions that happen on your website. Thanks to its customisation options, you can set your notification icons, title colour, text, links, and other options.
The platform compiles the most important metrics that you can use as data points to show off in your popup notifications, such as visitors, purchases & leads.
Pricing:
Along with two plans, Starter ($18/month) and Growth ($45/month), ProveSource offers a free program.
Proven is a concise social proof software that serves as a WordPress plugin and provides eCommerce merchants and startups with a plethora of tools to customise the design and content of the notifications.
This social proof plugin is one of the best in terms of value for money. Easy to set up and operate. Great for beginners since it requires no prior code knowledge. You can set up specific targeting criteria and choose when and how notifications are displayed to current users.
Pricing:
Proven offers three plans: 1 Site license ($39/year), 5 Sites license ($59/year), and an Unlimited license ($99/year).
Provely is a well-known social proof platform that is relied upon by 20k+ users (including the likes of Grant Cardone, Orange Theory, and other notable brands) and guarantees to convert site visitors into customers in a matter of minutes.
It uses psychological principles to influence potential customers favourably through 13 epic notification types.
For the amount you pay, Provely is amazing value for money. They even age a competitor pricing table so you can see what you normally pay for to receive the same volume and features as other top players.
You can design the UI of the different notification types and add additional features to affect visitors positively.
Provely provides live and historical data pop-ups, so you can choose what users see (the best-looking metrics of course ;). Like the others, you can select what users see depending on geo and website behaviour triggers.
Pricing:
Provely offers three types of paid subscription plans: Basic ($17/month), Ultimate ($37/month), and Pro ($27/month).
For a good reason, Smash Balloon is one of the most popular social proof platforms for Wordpress users. In fact, over 1.75 million websites use Smash Balloon.
It’s a plugin that provides top-tier social proof features, including tools such as the “SEO Booster” and “Speed Optimizer”. It also offers features around downtime prevention which is awesome.
Overall it’s simple to use, even with all the available features. It’s a great user experience when it comes to customisation features for designing the visual appeal of notifications, popups and embeds.
Other features include the ability to embed endorsements from websites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. The testimonials are neatly arranged on a wall to show your customers the genuineness of your products and services.
They also have a great bundle offer at a great yearly price, which includes all the formats and tools.
Pricing:
Smash Balloon comprises five paid plans based on which platforms you want to get testimonials from Facebook Feed Pro ($49/year), Instagram Feed Pro ($49/year), Twitter Feed Pro ($49/year), YouTube Feed Pro ($49/year), and All Access Bundle ($299/year).
Fizfy is an all-in-one social proof tool with many features and more than 43 widgets to boost your website's reputation and authority.
It uses cutting-edge features to influence visitors favourably and eventually convert them into loyal, pleased customers. Every time a customer purchases on your website, a sales pop up notification is sent to other visitors, increasing their feelings of FOMO.
The social widgets from Fizfy's library can be used to collect reviews from other websites and display them on your own. Since reviews from various websites are typically genuine, including them on your website can enhance customer perception.
To encourage customers to make purchases before the sale ends, there is a countdown bar feature that displays a countdown bar at the top of the website along with coupons.
Pricing:
Fizfy offers a seven-day free trial aside from its three types of paid subscription plans: Startup ($19/month), Business ($49/month), and Corporate ($99/month).
Boast is a social proof software application that makes collecting text and video testimonials a breeze. Then of course, ‘boasting’ those reviews across your landing pages is dead simple thanks to Boast.
It includes everything you need to demand, acquire, oversee, and exhibit consumer reviews. Business owners can collect online reviews of their products from email or social media in any form. Then using the embed code, you can display the garnered testimonials on the website.
You can record your testimonials directly from your smartphone using the Boast mobile app, making the process incredibly simple. The platform also includes a comprehensive dashboard. You can access features like edit, tag, and approve in the testimonials library.
Pricing:
Boast comes with a 14-day free trial and three types of plans: Basic ($59/month), Team ($119/month), and Premium ($249/month).
Personyze is a sophisticated platform with advanced features and services that can be easily customised to increase conversion rates on your website.
Merchants can tweak their efficient A/B testing personalisation tool for emails, promotions, recommendations, and landing pages until they figure out what results in the highest conversion, according to empirical data.
Real-time delivery of personalised content and promotions to increase conversion. Using Personyze’s advanced tools, merchants can easily define their target audience based on their website activity. Through that, the tool will send tailored notifications to entice visitors to view the website's positive aspects and make purchases.
Merchants can tweak their efficacious A/B testing personalisation tool for emails, promotional campaigns, suggestions, and landing pages until they figure out what results in the maximum conversion, according to observational evidence.
Pricing:
Personyze offers a free trial along with other plans: Lite ($250/month), Power ($450/month), and Enterprise($1450/month).
Use Trust helps you increase the credibility of your site by providing a plethora of widgets, pop-ups, testimonials, and other options.
Ecommerce merchants and SaaS marketers are provided with a single user-friendly platform from which they can manage all critical operations, such as driving and updating new testimonials and customising the appearance of notifications and pop-ups on the website.
Recent reviews from other rating platforms, such as Google My Business, Facebook, Trustpilot, or ProvenExpert, automatically update on your website instantly.
Regarding testimonials, words aren't very appealing, but videos significantly impact customers, increasing the conversion rate. Use Trust offers a script-style recording for videos in which the user enters the script first. Then while recording, the script is displayed simultaneously, allowing them to record crisp video testimonials.
Pricing:
Use Trust offers three affordable plans, including Starter ($19/month), Off the Ground ($49/month), and Business ($99/month), in addition to a free plan.
Testimonial.to is an epic tool used by a lot of top makers, entrepreneurs and creators. It requires no coding knowledge to set up and makes it simple to add testimonials to your landing pages.
You can easily create visually appealing and user-friendly landing pages using Testimonial.to’s features, such as a ‘wall of love’ to display all of your website's positive testimonials. You can also use the different themes for the product page to match your website's styling.
There’s a user-friendly dashboard to easily manage all the reviews, add, and track the page's performance.
Additionally, it has an awesome analytics platform where it can track the effectiveness of the reviews. Your marketing team can get additional ideas for improving your social proof services to attract more followers using the insights gained.
Pricing:
Testimonial.to offers a free plan alongside its lucrative plans: Premium ($50/month), Ultimate ($150/month), and Agency ($300/month).
Trustmary is a well-known social proof tool that establishes high confidence in customers to purchase services from your platform by showcasing reviews in the most compelling ways.
Trustmary offers merchants a diverse set of templates to choose from. Utilising visually appealing templates will help your website convert more visitors.
On your website, testimonial and review widgets assist you in showcasing and locating the best-performing testimonials and reviews. Trustmary provides lead generation forms that let you test various designs and choose the ones that perform best on your website to convert more leads.
Additionally, Trustmary offers easy-to-instal integrations with top marketing tools with any CMS. You can track the effectiveness of your website's performance by adding features and enabling integrations. These features allow you to share automatic reports generated from data collected on your website or from forms with your team.
Pricing:
Trustmary offers a free plan along with three plans: Business ($99/month), Pro ($299/month), and Enterprise ($499/month).
Shoutout.so utilises the power of social reviews from Twitter by embedding the tweets into your website, as well as Product Hunt reviews. Given the popularity of Twitter, tweets from satisfied customers praising your services or products will undoubtedly leave a favourable impression on visitors and assist in persuading them to make a purchase.
Shoutout uses walls to display tweets about your website or product. The walls are neatly displayed in any position on your website that you desire. The neat wall of tweets display will show your sales progress while instilling a positive and successful impression of your site.
Pricing:
Shoutout offers free and plans: Pro ($15/month) and Premium ($50/month).
Trustpulse is a cutting-edge "no-code" social proof app that requires no complex setup procedures and can be set up in just a few minutes, making it the perfect tool for beginners.
With just a 5-minute setup, you get access to purchase analytics, conversion notifications, and action messages. It is one of the well-liked products of OptinMonster. Depending on the amount of visitors you receive, you can send up to 100,000 notifications each day using Trustpulse.
At the time I’m writing this, they have very affordable plans for the amount of volume.
The platform offers stats that merchants can use to analyse customer behaviour on their websites, measure conversion goals, and quickly identify which pages convert at the highest rates, thanks to its robust analytics tools.
By showcasing the buying status of customers purchasing products on your website as well as the products' decreasing stock, Trustpulse cleverly capitalises on FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) and tempts visitors to tap the product and make an immediate purchase.
Pricing:
Trustpulse offers four plans with 14 day money back guarantee: Basic ($5/month), Plus ($10/month), Pro ($19/month) and Growth ($39/month).
Notifia is a platform jam-packed with CRO-based tools, widgets, notifications and popups, used by some of the world’s largest brands, including Fortune 500 organisations. In fact, over 13k+ business have Notifia installed.
Setting up the platform is simple. Simply provide your website, and the platform will handle the rest, including showing other customer reviews and providing excellent marketing services.
Furthermore, Notifia provides a huge selection of customisation options. One of these is that website owners have complete control over customising the notifications that show up when visitors browse your website. Additionally, this platform supports 181 languages so that the website will display the appropriate language according to your visitors' preferred browser settings.
The platform has more than 1,500 app integrations, including Hubspot, Zapier, MailChimp, and many others, in addition to the built-in social proof features. Fortunately, adding these integrations won't slow down your website, allowing you to take advantage of different marketing platforms at a low cost.
Pricing:
Notifia offers three paid plans: Growth ($9/month), Unlimited ($49/month), and Lifetime ($149 once), along with a 7-day free trial to try out its features.
Thrive Ovation is an epic WP plugin that effortlessly streamlines the process of adding testimonials to your landing pages to drive your ideal conversion goals. It allows you to import comments from social channels and blogs into your testimonials library.
All you need to do is copy and paste the reviews into the library along with the necessary URLs and the reviewer's name and position. After doing so, the reviews will be converted into testimonials and neatly displayed on where you add the embed.
You can automate the testimonial gathering process by sending automated messages to visitors and customers asking for a review of your site and services.
Thrive Ovation can detect and import any positive reviews or brand mentions made by one of your customers into your library.
Pricing:
With a 30-day money-back guarantee, the platform offers two types of plans: Thrive Suite ($299/year) and Thrive Ovation ($47/year).
Yotpo emphasises the value of aesthetics more to attract potential, year-round customers from visitors.
Yotpo enhances the visual appeal of each product and page it showcases using the principles of the psychology of visual content. The buyer reviews on the category page will persuade visitors to click and purchase them.
Customers will see notifications of other users' reviews and experiences when browsing the website, which will boost the credibility of your website. Additional of your store's best-selling content is displayed on the checkout page to prevent cart abandonment.
The review platform from Yotpo has a wide range of tools for gathering customer reviews. The platform employs various methods for collecting reviews, including email or SMS requests and unique questions displayed to visitors as they browse the website.
Pricing:
The platform comes with a free plan and four plans: Growth($19/month), Prime($59/month), Premium, and Enterprise plans are for large businesses, and the price can be determined by requesting a demo on the platform website.
WPfomify is a widely used plugin created for and used on WordPress websites. It gives site owners complete control over any activity on their site with powerful features. Controlling notification recipients, as well as the frequency and kind of notifications, is just a small part of app.
By offering UTM fields to add parameters and track with Google Analytics, the platform also makes it simpler for merchants to understand and analyse the performance of the websites.
Working with WPfomify gives merchants complete freedom and flexibility to design the user interface to their taste, and since the UI is user-friendly, the setup is simplified.
Pricing:
WPfomify offers three paid subscription plans: 1 Site License ($99 per year), Unlimited Sites ($299 per year), and Lifetime ($399 one time).
In my experience, they absolutely do. Having run a few split-tests with landing pages across a few businesses, having the notification pop-up of recent (and verified) customers buying products related to the visitor’s page behaviour certainly helps with conversions. Any way to display social proof helps with the overall persuasion and decision-making process for taking new visitors into becoming paying customers.
Many of them have free trial periods for you to test out and try. Each of the apps I talked about in this article are pretty cost-effective and worth investing in, at least for a trial period. The apps with great plans that are relatively low-cost and have some epic features are Provely, Notifia, Yotpo, FOMO, and Trustpulse.
There are two primary ways. First, you can install a simple JS script that most of these platforms provide, which you can then place in your theme code. Or secondly, which is the easier option, is to go to the Shopify App Store and install an app that already has a native integration. Usually, these apps through the store have a fairly straightforward installation process.
Absolutely they are. In most cases, you just need to copy and paste a snippet of code provided by the app platform and install on your site. Then, you can make configurations around design, behaviour, and lots more via the app interface and settings.
It’s hard to pick only one as I like many of the above I have spoken about. However, if I only had to choose one as my ‘go to’, it would have to be FOMO. Good price, great features for beginners to advanced users. Good value for money whether you’re an eCommerce store owner or SaaS platform.