Do you want to add a live sales notification to your Shopify store to see a boost in sales?
When visitors come to your site for the first time, they can be hesitant to make a purchase. In fact, the average consumer needs to be offered an item 7 times before they’re ready to buy.
Fortunately, there’s a way to speed things up a bit.
So, today, we’re going to teach you how to add a live sales notification for Shopify. But first, let’s get clear on what sales notifications are and why they work so well.
What Is a Live Sales Notification?
A live sales notification is a small popup campaign that shows your website’s visitors when other people have made a purchase on your site. In other words, they’re campaigns that display recent sales.
You’ve likely seen them before, maybe even while reading this post:
These small notifications can lead to big increases in your sales. What makes them work so well? Two words:
Social Proof.
When people are looking through your website, they might not be ready to make a purchase on their first visit. This is where social proof comes in to save the day.
When your site’s visitors see that other people are actively shopping with you, 2 things happen:
- They instantly feel that your site is more credible
- They get hit with a dose of FOMO (fear of missing out)
Both of these lead to more sales for you.
When people feel like they can trust your site, they’re more likely to make a purchase. That’s why we always recommend putting some trust badges on your website.
If you’re unfamiliar with trust badges and how they work, no worries. You can read this helpful resource on 12 trust badges you need to build instant trust.
But the other (and more powerful) effect on your visitors is FOMO. When consumers see other people taking positive actions to improve their lives, it makes them feel like they must be missing out on something good.
Then, before you know it, your casual website browser quickly turns into a loyal customer.
How do we know that live sales notifications work so well? Because we’ve seen them regularly boost sales by 15%.
That’s why we’re going to teach you how to add a live sales notification for your Shopify store in just 5 easy steps. By the end, you can expect more profits from your eCommerce strategy.
Let’s get started!
How to Add a Live Sales Notification for Shopify
Step 1: Choose a Campaign Type for the Shopify Notification
The first thing you need to do is sign up for TrustPulse, the leading social proof app. TrustPulse makes it easy to add a live sales notification.
Once you’ve signed up, log into your TrustPulse account and create a new live sales notification for Shopify. Name your new campaign and assign it to your Shopify store:
Then select your campaign type. You have two choices here:
- Recent Activity
- On-Fire
Both campaigns are incredibly effective when used in the right situation.
Recent Activity is perfect for showing notifications for actions taken on your site every day. They display an individual purchaser:
These work for things like showing customers when someone has signed up for a newsletter, left a comment on a blog post, or made a purchase on your site.
On-Fire works best when you expect large amounts of people to take a specific action in a short amount of time. That’s because they show the number of customers who took an action on your site:
These campaigns work well for flash sales, sitewide contests, or any other promotion that generates a lot of participants.
For today’s live sales notification for your Shopify store, we’ll go with Recent Activity:
Then click Next Step:
Step 2: Customize the Appearance & Design
Now you’re going to customize the appearance and design of your sales notification. You have so many options to make your campaign tailored to your brand and promotion.
You can change your notification’s:
- Language
- Visitor name
- Message text
- Message link
And more.
The last option, Message Link, is especially important:
When users see your sales notification display, you’ll want to give them easy access to check out what another customer recently purchased. That can include a link to:
- A specific product
- Categories within your Shopify store
- Product reviews
Or any other link that will help you convert casual website visitors into paying customers.
Another change you may consider if you’re running a sales notification for a specific product is displaying a photo of the item in the popup.
You can do that by clicking the dropdown menu next to Notification Image, selecting Custom Icon, and clicking Upload New Image:
Then upload a photo of your product, and users will see what other customers have purchased:
You should spend some time making your live sales notification as personalized as possible. Once you’ve tailored your campaign to your brand, voice, and style, click Next Step:
Step 3: Capture Activity on Your Shopify Store
In this step, you’ll set what action you want to trigger your Shopify sales notification. You have 2 options for capturing engagement with your online store:
- AutoMagic
- Zapier
AutoMagic is perfect for capturing activity taken on your website. This would include things like newsletter signups, contest participants, or purchased products.
Zapier is an integration that allows you to display a notification when people engage with your brand somewhere other than your website. So you could, for example, display a notification when someone leaves you a review on Google My Business.
Even though they didn’t take the action on your site, our Zapier integration will allow you to create a triggered campaign for that event.
For today, we simply need to choose AutoMagic since the sales will occur in your online store:
Then you can select which activity on your site will trigger your sales notification.
In the dropdown menu under Where should we watch for activity on this site?, select Form Activity from URLs containing specific text:
Below that, you need to locate Add one or more page rules and add the word checkouts to the URL of your Shopify store:
Then click the + icon:
You’re creating this rule because you want to show when a sale has occurred on your site.
That means that you need to capture any activity on your checkout page when people pay. Shopify store URLs use the unique term checkouts (note that the word is plural) when people pay for an item:
With this campaign rule, you’ll be showing other users whenever someone has taken an action on your checkouts page, which displays when customers make a purchase.
Now it’s time to customize where and when your live sales notification will display on your site by clicking Next Step.
Step 4: Choose Display Rules for Your Notification
You’ll need to decide which pages you’d like to show your Shopify sales notifications on. You can easily choose any page or category on your site, including:
- Any page
- Exact URLs
- URLs containing specific text
- URLs matching a pattern
And more. The most common use for a sales notification is our default setting, Display on any page:
This will show your sales notification on all pages of your site. That way, the most amount of your site’s traffic will see your campaign.
From there, you can choose some notification settings, such as:
- Delay between the sale and the notification (in seconds)
- How long your notification will appear on the screen
- Delay between separate notifications (in seconds)
And other display settings that allow you to decide exactly when and where your Shopify live sales notifications will appear.
Once you’ve determined what display settings will work best for your campaign, click the Next button to make your notification live.
Step 5: Publish Your Live Sales Notification
Now comes the easy part. Review your campaign to make sure that it matches what you want your users to see:
Then click Launch your TrustPulse Campaign:
In some cases, your site may not be connected to your TrustPulse account yet. If that happens, you’ll receive a small warning:
If you’re using WordPress, you can connect your site from your WordPress dashboard. That’s what makes TrustPulse one of the best plugins for Shopify stores when it comes to social proof.
Not using WordPress? If that’s the case, check out this helpful guide on how to add TrustPulse to any website. That resource will walk you step-by-step on getting TrustPulse connected to your site.
And that’s it!
You now have a Shopify notification that will show users when people have made a purchase on your Shopify store.
We hope you enjoyed this article and, if you did, feel free to pass it along to a friend who would benefit from live sales notifications.
Got any cool tips for leveraging social proof to get more sales? Reach out to us on Facebook or in the comments section below.
And, remember, live sales notifications are just 1 way of getting people to trust your website. You should be using many tactics to build your brand’s credibility.
For that, check out this guide which includes 9 tips for getting customers to trust your website.
