Increasing your conversion rate is one of the biggest challenges ecommerce website owners face (after getting traffic!) and one potential method for doing this is Social Proof Marketing from Fomo, but is it something you should consider?
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What is Social Proof Marketing?
I think the first thing to talk about is what exactly is Social Proof Marketing?
In many cases it is the digital version of word of mouth because visitors to your site can see that other people are buying from you and this grows trust in your website and increases the probability that they will decide to click on the buy button if the product you are selling is what they are looking to buy.
A real world example of this could be:
There are two fast food stands, one is busy, with people queuing to buy and people who have bought standing around smiling and saying how nice the food is. The other has no customers, just a bored member of staff stood around doing nothing.
Most people in this situation would go to the busy stand as they can see that other people are buying from them and also how much their customers are enjoying their food.
And Fomo looks to add a digital version of this social proof to your website.
How Does Fomo Work?
Fomo works by integrating with your ecommerce platform and the types of integration does depend on which platform you are using as it uses an app on Shopify but uses API integration with WooCommerce.
Once integrated, you can begin choosing the type of events that you want to show on your site, such as:
- How many users are currently on your site
- What people have recently purchased
You can also integrate Fomo with other online tools such as Trustpilot and Google Reviews to show that people are leaving reviews for your business (almost double social proofing), you can also show sign ups for newsletters with the likes of Mailchimp and GetResponse.
These events will appear as notifications on your customers screen, showing how other people are interacting with your site.
How Much Does Fomo Cost?
Fomo offers a total of 4 packages to accommodate businesses of all sizes:
- Fomo Starter: $19/m for up to 25,000 monthly notifications
- Fomo Essential: $39/m for up to 50,000 monthly notifications
- Fomo Plus: $79/m for up to 250,000 monthly notifications
- Fomo Advanced: $199/m for up to 3 million monthly notifications
If you pay annually, you do get a significant discount of 30% and on the Fomo pricing page, they have a tool to help you decide which package is going to be best for your site and this is based of the average monthly web sessions your website has.
They also offer a 14 day free trial on all packages, so you can test the tool out before committing to one of their paid plans.
What is Included in the Monthly Price?
Obviously you get the amount of notifications that I mentioned above, which is the main driver of the monthly price but there are also some other features of the tool that are useful to know about, including:
- Unlimited Integrations (more on this below)
- Use it on unlimited websites
- Active visitor counter
- 30+ customizable settings
- Roundup notifications
- Custom page rules
- API access
- 1-click machine learning
- white label branding
These are included with all package but you also get:
- Live chat support on the Essentials package
- Live chat + phone support on the Plus package
- All support options, Managed A/B testing, Free optimizations and API support on the Advanced package
One of the main features that is important to know about with Fomo is what platforms and tools does it integrate with and I’ve done my best to break it down into the main categories below:
Ecommerce
- Shopify
- WooCommerce
- Bigcommerce
- Shift4Shop (3dcart)
- Magento
- Volusion
- Easy Digital Downloads
- Prestashop
- Big Cartel
- CS Cart
- Squarespace
Email Marketing
- Mailchimp
- GetResponse
- SendFox
- AWeber
- ActiveCampaign
- ConvertKit
- MailerLite
Online Reviews
- TrustPilot
- Google Reviews
- Yotpo
- Judge.me
- ShopperApproved
- Stamped
- Feedback Company
- Reviews.io
- Trusted Shops
Subscriptions
- Memberpress
- CrateJoy
- Recharge
- MemberStack
- AMember
Social Media
- YouTube
Events & Courses
- EventBrite
- Teachable
- Thinkific
There are also more integrations with some more specialist software but as you can see, there are lots of integrations available and using these effectively could not only potentially increase your conversion rate but also grow your email list and social media following.
What is Fomo Like to Use?
So on paper, Fomo looks like a good potential tool for improving your ecommerce websites conversion rate but this doesn’t mean a lot if it is difficult to use!
Getting Started
Getting started with Fomo is really simple, just go to fomo.com and sign up for their free trial on the package that you think is going to be most suitable for your business.
You will then be taken through a short set up guide that helps get the tool set up with your website and also to choose the style of notification that you want to appear on your site.
Step 1: Enter your website URL
Step 2: Choose the style of notification
Step 3: Embed the code snippet on your website
Once you have completed this, Fomo will look for the code snippet on your site and once it has been found, you can then go and start configuring how you want it to work for your business.
The first thing to do is to decide what kind of notifications you want to appear on your site and what other integrations you want to add, for this go to the integrations section of the dashboard and find the platform you want to integrate Fomo with.
Then simply follow the instructions on screen to set up the integration and once set up, each integration will have its own setting section, where you can decide what notification appear.
You can also set up rules, so if there are certain pages of your site you don’t want notifications appearing on, you can create them here. Some integrations will have some rules available by default such as notifications not appearing in the Shopify cart.
As the plan you are on is dictated by the amount of notifications that show on your site, you may want to limit the amount notifications that appear per session plus you don’t really want to be spamming people with notifications!
All of these limits can be set up by going into the settings section and you can choose things like the maximum number of notifications shown per page and per session, you can also limit how old the notifications are that you choose to display.
Overall, Fomo is easy to use and the learning curve is quite shallow plus they do have a good help section and video tutorials to help you get started.
Can You Create Fake Notifications?
No, within the Fomo dashboard, you cannot create fake notifications as all of the prompts are taken from the platforms that you integrate with and this is one of the reasons why I like the Fomo software, because there are similar tools out there that you can create fake notifications with and I am personally against misleading customers.
Fomo will only show notifications when it receives the information from the platforms you are integrated with, some examples are:
- A completed sale on Shopify
- A review left on Trustpilot
- A sign up to your Mailchimp newsletter
This makes it very difficult to manipulate the Fomo software and you know that you are only showing genuine events to your sites visitors.
How Best to Use Fomo?
Obviously, each ecommerce website is different and is going to have different goals that they want to achieve by using Fomo but I thought I would explain how I personally would use Fomo on an ecommerce website:
- I would only use Fomo on a site that is already getting traffic and sales, if you aren’t getting traffic, then Fomo might not benefit your site site much
- Use a third party such as Trustpilot of Google for customer reviews and ask existing customers to leave you are review if they are happy with the product & service they received
- Show notifications of new orders being placed
- Show notifications of reviews being left for your business
This would be my method as it is almost double social proofing your site because not only can new visitors see that others are buying from you but also that they are happy enough dealing with you that they have left a review.
This builds trust around your website and removes some of the barriers that new users may have about dealing with you, along with other trust factors.
Conclusion
Fomo Social Proof
Summary
Is Fomo Worth Using?
I definitely think that Fomo is a tool that is worth considering, especially if you are having good levels of traffic to your site but are struggling to convert your traffic into sales.
Is it a guaranteed success, no but nothing is and some companies have seen notable increases in their stores conversion rates and you can read some case studies on the Fomo website.
Overall the tool is easy to use, has integrations with lots of tools frequently used by ecommerce businesses, but the big plus for me is that you can’t create fake notifications within Fomo, it only picks up on prompts generated by the tools that it integrates with.
If you want to try Fomo for yourself, you can do so by clicking here and you also get 50% off your first month.
Hi, I'm Paul, the Owner and Founder of EcommerceGold.
I ran my own Ecommerce Business for over 7 years and now help others start their own online retail empires!