Introduction
ProveSource is a social proof website.
Social proof is an avenue of marketing and advertising which communicates people’s acceptance and reviews of your products in a variety of ways to customers and leverages their FOMO.
It is quite analogous to giving preferance to a restaurant that has more people in it as opposed the one with fewer customers, especially if you are new to that area but also otherwise. This survey (https://bizrateinsights.com/resources/shopper-survey-report-the-impact-reviews-have-on-consumers-purchase-decisions/) states that about 92% people look into product review before making a purchase.
There a variety of social proof tools that can embed into your website such as TrustPulse, OptinMonster and SocialProve but we are going to look into ProveSource in this article.
ProveSource is one of the best social proof service out there with a neat interface that can boost user confidence and build trust.
The average increase in conversion rates as claimed by ProveSource is about 17%.
Features
ProveSource has a ton of unique features. The most important of these is that it allows seamless integration with WordPress, Wix, Woo Commerce, and the like and also allows for embedding JavaScript in the source code in any other case.
The principle on which ProveSource works is Notifications, which are small cards that display some dynamic information in some part of the screen for a customizable amount of time. This information could be of the following types:-
- Stream – It pops up whenever a particular action takes place on your website. It could of course, be tailored to your needs such as whenever anyone buys a product or signs up for an event. It is most probably what you are going to use in case of e-commerce.
- Social Counter – It displays the number of followers, subscribers and likes that you have across various social platforms – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram.
- Reviews – It plucks the positive reviews of your business from any place that you specify such as Google Reviews, Facebook, Capterra etc. and makes them visible on your webpage.
- Informational – These notifications present some kind of static information associated with a particular set of pages or the whole of website such as some Festive Sale or Discount percentage or some Warranty that may attract the purchasers.
- Then there are various types of counters counting the page visits, conversions (whatever that may mean for your website), and the number of live viewers browsing the website right now.
- Then there is a Combo option which is what it sounds like – a combination of 1. and 5. – a counter of how often a particular action has taken place over a particular period of time.
Once you are done with what information you want to exhibit you can connect them with your URL.
There are numerous parameters that you can change to suit your requirements such as the position and size of these cards, the text inside of them, the background colors etc.
Pricing
It has a free plan with very limited features including just one type of notification for the entire website, although this feature itself is quite unique among similar social proof websites.
Besides this, there are three other plans that vary mostly in the number of unique visitors that the notifications are shown to every month.
There is some other difference also such as being able to get rid of the “Powered by ProveSource” watermark and place your own. I have tabulated the differences in the plans here –
| Starter | Growth | Monster | Gorilla |
| $18/month | $45/month | $91/month | 183/month |
| 10K Monthly Unique Visitors | 50K Monthly Unique Visitors | 200K Monthly Unique Visitors | 500K Monthly Unique Visitors |
There is also an Enterprise plan that you can opt for if the Gorilla plan does not satiate your requirements where you get as many Unique Visitors as you want. You should reach out to the company if this is the case.
Pros and Cons
PROS –
- The foremost pro of ProveSource is one that we have already mentioned – It integrates with 100+ 3rd party services such as WordPress, Wix, Zapier, Magento, Shopify, Mailchimp, or WooCommerce.
- It has a free plan albeit it has the limitation of allowing for only one type of notification on your entire website, it is still better than nothing. No credit card is required for it.
- It is easy to set up regardless of what service you are gonna integrate it with.
- Supports 20+ languages
- Customize the number of notifications per hour, per session, the time for which they appear, and whether they can be closed among other things
- Get analytics about the number of impressions, hovers & clicks.
- Has a nice youtube channel containing tutorials for pretty much everything you may want to do – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWiH2XAOx_Alu85HlimaMUA
- It works across devices of all operating systems – Android, Mac, Windows, iPhone, and Linux.
- Allows AB Testing by combining with Google Optimize – https://help.provesrc.com/en/articles/3474513-a-b-test-provesource-with-google-optimize
CONS –
- The Starter paid version is still branded. You will have to do with a “Powered by ProveSource” on your notifications.
- It looks unoptimized and too big for smartphones.
- Do not offer as much flexibility in setting the font styles and colours.
- Not geared towards displaying large and detailed testimonials.
- Cannot add notifications to more than one website with just one subscription.
Why ProveSource
One can begin with ProveSource to get familiar with social proof tools without burning a hole in your pocket.
Besides the Pros mentioned above, you can have map-based icons for the users who performed and actions or their avatar from their profile or any other image.
It has a Capterra rating of 4.8/5.0 from about 80 reviews. It has a GetApp rating of 4.8/5.0. While this statement can be debated, ProveSource is probably the best service in its particular niche.
If you do not want to think about it too much, you can just go for it. It has all that you may want.
ProveSource Alternatives
Most of the alternatives have the same common set of features with some differences in features and pricing.
None of these however have a free plan. One of the alternatives to ProveSource is TrustPulse that has a unique feature of “On Fire” Notifications which automatically pops up the most active purchases or actions of the website.
It offers 10,000 sessions (not uniques visitors) per month @ $17.
Another service called Proof is perhaps heinously expensive at $66/month for essentially the same features, probably because it is quite old.
Fomo is perhaps a good competitor with 25,000 notifications per month @ $19 with a greater degree of customization of text. Some other alternatives are – Social Prove and Provely.
FAQ
1. Does ProveSource impact my website performance and page speed?
Ans – No. The load time is less than 200ms.
2. How many notifications can I display on a single URL?
Ans – You can display as many notifications as you wish on a single page URL. They will be displayed one after another.
3. Does ProveSource work on mobile?
Ans -Yes! ProveSource works great across all screen types and resolutions.
4. What happens if I have more visitors than my plan supports?
Ans – ProveSource will simply stop showing notifications to the new visitors until the monthly period is over or until you upgrade to a larger plan. You’ll get an email once you’re at 90% of your plan, and also once you reach your limit.
5. Can I create fake notifications or use fake numbers with ProveSource?
Ans – No. We know it can really help you and your new product, but we are dedicated to providing our clients with an honest marketing strategy.
6. Can I use my own branding instead of “Powered By ProveSource”?
Ans – The option is available for paying customers only. If you’re on the Starter package, it’s an additional $9/month but free for all other plans.
7. Does ProveSource have an affiliate program?
Ans – You can earn a 20% recurring commission for every paying customer referred by you!
8. Is your ProveSource snippet installed on all relevant pages?
Ans – Your snippet needs to be installed on all relevant pages in order to display any type of notification.
Summary
Social Proof tools can add a new dimension to your advertising and marketing strategy.
It can encourage visitors to delve into your products and services and humanize your website.
It is even more important for an online store than an offline store as one cannot really inspect the products himself/herself. Both the quality and quantity of reviews are important.
This should act not only as feedback but also an advertising strategy in itself with appropriate social proof tools.
I myself realized the power of this technique while I was writing up this article.
To begin with it, watch this video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NO9AuHvQtNY
