You may have seen "Verified By Proof" pop-up on a website or eCommerce store that you visited.
You may be asking yourself what "Verified by Proof" is, and to what extent it is truthful and reliable.
I am in an excellent position to tell you more about notification pop-ups that usually appear in the lower-left corner of the screen... as I use them myself on my websites!
We, here are the Art of Growth Marketing, often get the question: Is Verified by Proof legit?
After reading this article, you will know:
- if Verified by Proof is reliable and legit
- what is Proof
- what social proof is
- how the notification pop-ups works
- how to use social proof pop-ups on eCommerce stores and on websites
What is Proof
Proof is an Austin Texas-based agency that develops pop-up software to help eCommerce stores and websites boos sales.
Proof offers pop-up notification software called Pulse and webpage content customization tool called "Experience." Y Combinator backs Proof, a famous seed funding investor in startups, which means that the software company Proof is legit!
Long story short, when you purchase something from an eCommerce store that uses Proof, the information in the database may be taken and displayed to other visitors.
The information is usually related to an action that a visitor or a buyer took; for example, "Sarah from NYC bought this pair of shoes 23 min" and "There are 46 people online right now."
On top of that, some people may leave reviews about a product or a service on 3rd party Review platforms life Capterra, Review.io, etc. Those reviews can also be displayed on the notification pop-ups.
The core principle of the notification pop-up is to use the power of "Social Proof." Hence the name of the company "Proof."
What is Social Proof?
Social Proof is, frankly said, the social influence that other people have on us.
As human beings tend to mimic what other people do, and that by nature, we tend to gather in groups of people we have common points with, when a visitor sees that someone did an action, the likelihood that the user takes the same action is higher.
Marketers use this principle as part of their marketing tactics to make us take action like buying a product, subscribing to a newsletter, leaving a review, joining an online class, etc.
Makes sense?
Social Proof leverages some psychological concepts like fear of missing out, scarcity… if you want to learn more, we made a post about What is Social Proof.
The notification pop-ups usually display primary information:
- image or map (e.g., image of the person who took action, often taken from 3rd party review websites)
- location (e.g., California, UK, Montréal)
- time of action (e.g., 1 day ago, 12 min ago)
- type of action (e.g., subscribed, bought, joined, downloaded, etc.)
- star ratings
- testimonials (e.g., I love the room in this hotel, fantastic view of the Eiffel Tower. 4 stars -John Smith)
Some companies offer plenty of other types of notifications like:
- games
- introduction videos
- forms with name and email
- surveys
- emoticon feedback
- and many more
Is Verified by Proof really verified? Is it legit and truthful?
The short-answer is: YES. Verified by Proof is legit as Proof, the company that offers the Social Proof software, aggregates data from reliable, trusted and verified 3rd party sources like Capterra, Reviews.io, etc. Proof also aggregates up-to-date and highly relevant data from their users' database, data that is based on actions, location and behavior of their customers.
The million-dollar question is:
Can we trust "Verified by Proof?"
I may surprise you, but I think it is the wrong question to ask!
Proof offers a service that allows website and eCommerce owners use 2 types of information as input:
- information directly from their database/website (e.g., number of people online, people who took whatever action, etc.)
- 3rd party platforms data (e.g., Capterra reviews)
In the first case, Proof relies on the data input from the owner of the website.
In the second case, Proof relies on the data that it aggregates from 3rd party platforms.
So The Art of Growth Marketing believes that the real question should be:
Are the people using Proof honest?
If somebody can make fake gold bars that are harder and harder to detect, you bet that there are ways around.
However, it does not mean that everybody who is using Proof is shady.
Far from it. I feel that only a small minority of souls may be shady, and honestly, I never did any research, so I cannot really tell.
We all know that the output, the notifications, depends on the input, the data.
In conclusion, if the source of the data is legit, the notifications will be legit, and so is Verified by Proof.
So when you see pop-ups notification Verified by Proof, you can ask yourself: is the store or website I am looking at now legit, reliable, and honest?
If it is, then Verified by Proof is legit.
How does Verified by Proof work?
The principles behind Verified by Proof notifications are easy to understand.
Just like Google Analytics, Social Proof notifications work with a tracking snippet.
When visitors access the website, the tracking snippet does 2 things:
- tracks their actions (to gather data for Data Analytics, display information like "24 people online now," etc.)
- display information taken by other users (e.g.recent actions like "68 people subscribed to the online course in the past 24 hours")
The owner of the eCommerce store or website creates an account at useproof.com
Then they follow the hassle-free on-boarding:
- Install a tracking pixel on your eCommerce store or website (it is compatible with pretty much all platforms online including HTML, WordPress, WooCommerce, Shopify, etc.)
- If you have a business with reviews and testimonials from clients, that are shown on a 3rd party platform like Capterra, you can add your Capterra link so that Proof aggregates the information.
- Create Pop-ups base on what you want to display
- Set the webpages where pop-ups notification will appear
- Set where you collect emails if you have any webpages with email and name fields
- Customize campaign settings like Language, display on Mobile, etc.
And bingo, ready to go!
What about Privacy?
The information that is displayed is private.
For example, if you bought something on an eCommerce website and left your first name and your last name, the notification will only display your first name, keeping your privacy.
Keep in mind that if you left a review on a 3rd party platform, the information displayed on the notification is likely to be the same as the one on the 3rd party platform.
An excellent example of this would be Capterra, like the example we gave above "Love the shoes, they make me run faster! 5 stars -Jane Smith, Gym Coach."
How to use Verified by Proof on my eCommerce store or Website
Proof is straightforward to install and use.
It is also, I guess, the most commonly used pop-up software on the market.
However, Proof is a little bit limited in terms of features options, and the pricing is just… expensive.
It is probably a useful tool for enterprise-level companies, but perhaps not for smaller businesses
What do you think?
If you are interested in learning more about Social Proof Software, guess what, we did a review of the Best Social Proof Softwaret.
We also have reviews of Social Proof Software as well (one review per tool.)
Before you start using a Social Proof software, you need to have a clear idea of the features you need, what you want, and the budget you have.
Some Social Pop-up software is quite expensive.
Our favorite for websites is ProveSource.
For eCommerce, you may want to have a look at ProveSource as it integrates pretty well with Shopify and WooCommerce.
For AI (Artificial Intelligence) backed insights and data, we recommend FOMO.
Let us know your experience with Proof and other Social Proof software!
Do you believe that Proof is legit?