Social Proof and Urgency Messaging in VWO

What is Social Proof?

Social proof refers to a psychological tendency in which people look at the actions, opinions, or behaviors of others to help guide their own decisions. In digital experiences, social proof helps build trust and influence customer behavior by showing that others have already used, liked, or benefited from a product or service.

Think of it as “strength in numbers.” When people see others engaging, they feel more confident about doing the same. By highlighting real-world usage and approval, social proof reduces hesitation and encourages more conversions.

Use cases

Social proof and urgency messaging can be applied across industries and customer touchpoints to build trust, reduce hesitation, and encourage faster decisions. Below are some common examples:

• E-commerce - Show live activity or demand signals such as “5 people have this in their cart” or “12 sold in the last 24 hours.” This creates urgency by highlighting popularity and limited availability, nudging hesitant shoppers to complete their purchase.
• Travel & Hospitality - Highlight recent bookings or occupancy information, such as “2 rooms booked in the last hour” or “Only three seats left at this price.” This reassures users that others are choosing the same option and pushes them to act before it’s gone.
• SaaS & Subscriptions - Display adoption and credibility with messages like “Trusted by 5,000+ companies worldwide” or “Join 1M+ users already using our platform.” These messages reduce doubt and strengthen brand authority.
• Events & Webinars - Create urgency and anticipation by showing live attendee counts or availability notices such as “200 people have already registered” or “Spots are filling fast.” This helps increase registrations by showing that others are interested and space is limited.
• Food Delivery & Local Services - Promote popular or trending choices with messages like “Most ordered in your area” or “This item is trending now.” These cues make decision-making easier for customers and encourage them to try what others are already enjoying.

Configure Social Proof in VWO

Follow the steps below to configure social proof in VWO:

1. Define an Event-Based Variable

   Create an event-based variable to track visitor actions within a configurable time window. This variable returns the total number of visitors who triggered a specified event.

   Example
   If the target event is product_purchased and the retrospective window is set to 7 days, the variable will return the count of visitors who completed a product purchase within the last 7 days for the product page they visited.

2. Create a Social Proof Nudge

   Design your social proof nudge and embed the variable using the Edit Element or Edit HTML operation along with a social proof message.

   • VWO editor supports Embedded JavaScript (EJS) syntax <%= %> to inject the variable in text/HTML.
   • Use conditional statements to customize messaging based on count thresholds.

Example Scenario

In an e-commerce website, you can display the number of users who bought the product or number of users who viewed the product or some bestselling product all using event-driven variable.

For example, consider an e-commerce website, abc.com, where a visitor, John, navigates to the iphone 15 page - https://www.abc.com/iphone15. You can show him a nudge along the lines of:

X users purchased this product in the last 5 days

To achieve this, you can do the following in the VWO campaign editor:

1. In the Edit element/Edit html operation, select the variable. For example, PurchaseCount contains the count of purchases for the last 5 days. Next, add the text:

   <h2><%= PurchaseCount%> users purchased this product in the last 5 days!</h2>

2. Optionally, you can use the variable in conditions to enhance messaging:

   <% if (PurchaseCount > 100) { %>
     <h2>Hurry! Over <%= PurchaseCount %> users bought iPhone 15 this week!</h2>
   <% } else { %>
     <h2>Be among the first <%= 100 - PurchaseCount %> to buy the iPhone 15!</h2>
   <% } %>

Need more help?

For further assistance or more information, contact VWO Support.