Proofly – Social Proof Notifications

Overview #

Proofly is a social proof notification plugin for WordPress. It displays small, non-intrusive popup messages in a corner of your site showing real-time share counts, recent WooCommerce purchases, sharing activity, on-sale products, and fully custom messages. Every notification type blends into a single rotating pool, creating a natural sense of trust and urgency for your visitors.

Installation & First Steps #

1. Upload the proofly or proofly-pro folder to /wp-content/plugins/ and activate the plugin from Plugins → Installed Plugins.
2. The Proofly menu item appears in the WordPress admin sidebar (look for the blue check-badge icon).
3. Go to Proofly → General, toggle Enable Notifications to on, then configure at least one notification type on its respective tab.
4. Save each tab separately — only the settings visible on the current tab are saved when you click Save Settings.

General Settings #

The General tab is the master control panel. It determines whether Proofly runs at all, where notifications appear, and how they behave in the browser.

Activation #

Setting	Description	Default
Enable Notifications	Master on/off switch. When disabled, no notifications appear anywhere on the site, regardless of other settings.	Off

Display #

Setting	Description	Default
Position on Screen	Corner where notifications appear: Bottom Left, Bottom Right, Top Left, or Top Right.	Bottom Left
Show on Mobile Devices	When disabled, notifications are hidden on screens narrower than 768 px.	On
Show Close Button	Displays a small × button on each notification so visitors can dismiss it manually.	On
Loop Notifications	When all notifications in the pool have been shown, start again from the beginning.	Off
Maximum Notifications per Session	Global cap on how many notifications a visitor sees across all types in one visit. Set to 0 for no cap.	0 (unlimited)

Timing #

Setting	Description	Default
Initial Delay (seconds)	How many seconds after the page loads before the very first notification appears.	10 s
Display Duration (seconds)	How long each notification stays visible before sliding out.	5 s
Pause Between (seconds)	Gap between one notification hiding and the next one appearing.	4 s
Random Delay PRO	Instead of a fixed pause between notifications, uses a random interval between a minimum and maximum value you set. Makes the sequence feel more organic.	Off
Multiple Simultaneous Notifications PRO	Show up to 4 notification boxes at the same time, stacked vertically.	1
Session Cap PRO	Maximum notifications shown before Proofly stops for the session. Resets when the visitor closes and reopens the browser.	0 (unlimited)

Audience & Targeting PRO #

Setting	Description
Visitor Types	Show notifications to: All visitors, Logged-in users only, or Logged-out visitors only.
Show Notifications On	Limit display to: Entire site, Homepage only, Selected post types only, or specific posts and pages by ID.
Exit Intent Trigger	Show a notification when the visitor moves their cursor toward the browser’s address bar (signals intent to leave).
Scroll Trigger	Delay the first notification until the visitor has scrolled a set percentage down the page (default 30%).
Scheduled Display Window	Only show notifications between two times of day (24-hour format), every day. Useful for businesses with live support hours.

Danger Zone #

At the bottom of the General tab you will find two irreversible actions. Both require explicit confirmation.

• Reset All Settings — Clicking this button resets every Proofly option to its factory default. Notification pools and analytics data are not affected.
• Delete All Data on Deactivation — When this toggle is enabled, deactivating the plugin permanently deletes all settings and analytics data. It cannot be undone. A confirmation prompt appears before the toggle can be switched on.

Share Notifications #

Share notifications display how many times the current post or page has been shared on each social network. They pull share count data from Easy Social Share Buttons for WordPress (ESSB) and will not appear if ESSB is not installed.

Setting	Description	Default
Enable Share Notifications	Master toggle for this notification type.	Off
Show Post Featured Image	Use the post’s featured image as the notification thumbnail instead of the social network icon. Falls back to the icon if no featured image exists.	Off
Maximum Share Notifications	Cap how many share notifications are generated per page load across all networks. 0 means no cap.	5
Minimum Share Count to Display	A network only generates a notification if its share count meets or exceeds this number. Prevents showing “1 share” if that feels too low.	1
Network Filter	Tick specific networks to include. Leave all unchecked to use every network that has share data.	All networks
Message Tone & Template	Choose from preset message tones (Popular, Trending, Social Proof, Urgency, FOMO, Curiosity, Authority, Community, Minimal, Question, Milestone, Gone Viral, Pure Stat). The tone pre-fills the template. You can edit the template text freely. Use [nl] for a line break.	Popular
On Click	What happens when a visitor clicks the notification: No action, trigger the Share dialog for that network, or open a Custom URL.	Share

Total Shares Notification PRO #

An additional notification showing the combined share count across all networks for the current post. Enable it, pick its own tone and template, and set a click action independently of the per-network notifications.

Display Targeting PRO #

Restrict share notifications to specific pages (entire site, homepage, selected post types, or specific IDs), independently of the global targeting set in General.

WooCommerce Order Notifications #

Shows recent order activity for your WooCommerce store — for example, “Someone in Paris just bought Blue Running Shoes.” Requires WooCommerce to be installed and active.

Setting	Description	Default
Enable WooCommerce Notifications	Master toggle for this notification type.	Off
Maximum Notifications	Cap on how many order notifications are generated per page load.	5
Read Orders From	How far back to look for orders: Last 24 hours, Last 7 days, Last 30 days, Last 90 days, or Last year.	Last 30 days
Message Tone & Template	Choose from presets (Recent Purchase, Hype, Simple, Social Proof, Urgency, Trust Builder, Casual) and customise the template. Available variables: {name}, {city}, {country}, {product}, {time}.	Recent Purchase
On Click	No action, go to the product page, or open a custom URL.	Product page

Pro Options PRO #

Setting	Description
Show “X minutes ago” Label	Append a relative time label to the notification (e.g. “3 minutes ago”).
Custom Recently Text	Override the default “just now / minutes ago / hours ago” wording with your own phrase.
Fake Order Time	Display a random elapsed time even for orders that are older, making them appear more recent.
Product Filter	Include or exclude specific products or categories from order notifications.
Fake Order Notifications	Generate simulated purchase notifications when real order data is sparse. Set a count and time window. Blend mode mixes fake and real orders together seamlessly.
Display Targeting	Control which pages show WooCommerce order notifications, independently of the global setting.

Woo Promo Notifications PRO #

Highlights products that are currently on sale. Proofly reads your WooCommerce on-sale product list and generates notifications showing the deal — for example, “Summer Dress is on sale! Save 40% — now $29.99.” Requires WooCommerce.

Setting	Description
Enable Woo Promo Notifications	Master toggle for this notification type.
Maximum Notifications	How many on-sale products to show per page load.
Message Tone & Template	Choose from tones: Hot Deal, Simple Sale, Save Amount (free plan), Percent Off, Countdown, FOMO, Premium Deal. Variables include {title}, {price_regular}, {price_sale}, {discount_pct}, {discount_amount}, {date_end}, {date_end_label}, {category}.
On Click	Go to the product page or open a custom URL.
Product & Category Filter	Include or exclude specific products or categories from promo notifications.
Display Targeting	Control which pages show promo notifications.

Sharing Activity Notifications #

Shows real sharing events recorded by Easy Social Share Buttons — for example, “Alex just shared this on Facebook.” This data comes from ESSB’s analytics tracking table and is not available without ESSB.

Setting	Description	Default
Enable Share Activity Notifications	Master toggle for this notification type.	Off
Show Post Featured Image	Use the shared post’s featured image as the thumbnail instead of the network icon. Falls back to the icon if no image exists.	Off
Maximum Notifications	Cap on how many activity notifications are generated per page load.	5
Time Period	Only pull sharing events within this window: Last hour, Last 6 hours, Last 24 hours, Last 7 days, Last 30 days.	Last 24 hours
Unique List	When enabled, shows only the most recent activity per post + network combination — removes duplicates from the same person sharing multiple times.	Off
Network Filter	Limit activity notifications to specific networks. Leave empty for all networks.	All networks
Message Tone & Template	Choose from activity-specific tones and customise the template. Variables: {name}, {network}, {title}, {time}.
On Click	No action, go to the shared post, or open a custom URL.	Post

Fake Activity PRO #

Generate simulated activity events when real sharing data is limited. Set a count, a time window (minimum and maximum minutes ago), and optionally restrict which posts are used as the source. Blend mode mixes fake and real events seamlessly in the pool.

Custom Notifications #

Custom notifications let you hand-craft any message you want — announcements, evergreen social proof, seasonal promotions, or anything that doesn’t fit the automatic types. Free plan allows one custom notification; Proofly Pro allows unlimited.

Managing the List #

• Click Add Notification to create a new item. It opens immediately in edit mode.
• Drag the ⠿ handle on the left to reorder notifications. The order here is the order they appear in the pool.
• Click the ✎ pencil icon to expand an item for editing, or ✕ to delete it (with confirmation).
• The ▶ / ⏸ button toggles an individual notification active or inactive without deleting it.
• The Enable Custom Notifications master toggle at the top enables or disables the entire custom type in one click.

Each Notification’s Settings #

Setting	Description
Descriptive Title	Internal label for your reference — not shown to visitors.
Hide Thumbnail	Toggle off the thumbnail/icon for this notification only, regardless of the global hide-thumb setting.
Thumbnail Type	Choose between Image URL (a photo from your media library or any URL) or Custom Icon (your own SVG).
Image URL	Paste a URL or use the Choose button to pick an image from your WordPress media library.
SVG Icon Code	Paste raw SVG markup or click Upload SVG to select an SVG file — its code is read automatically and placed in the field.
Apply Colour Styling	When enabled, reveals four fields: Background Colour (fills the icon container), Icon Colour (replaces all fill and stroke values in the SVG, ignoring none and currentColor), Icon Size (px), and Padding (px). The colour replacement happens at render time, so your original SVG file is untouched.
Message Template	The text of the notification. Use [nl] to insert a line break. The first line is displayed in bold.
On Click	No action or Open URL. If Open URL is selected, a URL field appears below.

Style Settings #

The Style tab controls the visual appearance of all notifications — layout, shape, colours, animations, and advanced customisation. Changes are reflected immediately in the live preview box on the right side of the tab.

Layout Templates #

Five visual layouts are available. Click one to preview it instantly:

Template	Description
Classic	Standard card with a rectangular container. Semi-bold headline, two supporting lines, and the “Verified by Proofly” credit badge.
Bold	Extra-heavy headline weight, smaller supporting lines. High visual impact.
Accent	A 3-pixel coloured left border highlights the primary text colour. Clean and modern.
Pill	Fully rounded ends, compact padding. Minimal and unobtrusive.
Icon	Emphasises the thumbnail with a larger, shadow-framed icon. Text is condensed alongside it.

Shape & Colours #

Setting	Description	Default
Notification Width (px)	Maximum width of each notification box. On small screens it automatically clamps to screen width minus 32 px to stay responsive. Set to 0 to use the default (400 px).	0 (400 px)
Hide Thumbnail / Icon	Remove the thumbnail from all notifications globally. Individual custom notifications can override this per item.	Off
Icon Shape	Border-radius of the thumbnail: Square, Rounded, or Circle.	Rounded
Container Shape	Border-radius of the notification box itself (Classic template only): Square, Rounded, or Pill.	Rounded
Background Colour	Fill colour of the notification card. Leave empty for the default white.	White
Headline Colour	Colour of the first (bold) line of text.	Dark
Supporting Text Colour	Colour of the second and third text lines.	Grey
Default Thumbnail Image	Fallback image URL used when a notification has no image of its own.	None

Dark Mode PRO #

Applies a dark colour palette to all notifications (dark background, light text, deeper shadow). If you have set custom Background Colour or Headline/Text Colour in the fields above, those values take priority over the dark mode defaults — giving you full control over a custom dark theme.

Animation PRO #

Choose how notifications enter and exit: Slide Up (default, always available), Fade In / Out, Bounce, or Flip. The free version always uses Slide Up.

Notification Sound PRO #

Play a subtle audio chime each time a notification appears. Adjust the volume (0–100) to your preference. Sound is only triggered by a user interaction (click/tap) on the page first, in line with browser autoplay policies.

Custom CSS PRO #

A freeform CSS field loaded on every page where notifications appear. Write any CSS overrides here without editing plugin files. Below the field you will find a CSS Selector Reference listing every class available for styling:

Selector	What it targets
.proofly-box	Notification container — background, shadow, border, width
.proofly-inner	Inner flex row — padding, gap between thumb and text
.proofly-thumb	Thumbnail/icon wrapper — dimensions, border-radius
.proofly-thumb img	Thumbnail image element
.proofly-thumb-icon	SVG icon inside the thumb — colour, background
.proofly-message	Text column — font, colour, line-height
.proofly-line-1	First (bold headline) line
.proofly-line-2 / .proofly-line-3	Supporting text lines
.proofly-credit	“Verified by Proofly” badge
.proofly-close	Close (×) button
.proofly-network-badge	Network icon badge (top-right corner on share notifications)
.proofly-type-woocommerce	Target one notification type (also: -share, -activity, -promo, -custom)
.proofly-tpl-classic etc.	Target a specific layout template (-bold, -accent, -pill, -icon)
.proofly-pos-left / .proofly-pos-right	Target notifications by screen position

Privacy & Branding PRO #

Setting	Description
GDPR Anonymisation	Replaces customer names and city information in WooCommerce notifications with generic text (“Someone” / “a nearby location”) to avoid displaying personal data.
White Label	Removes the “Verified by Proofly” credit badge from all notifications.

Analytics PRO #

The Analytics tab tracks every notification impression and click-through entirely on your own server — no external services, no data sharing. All data is stored in your WordPress database.

Enabling Analytics #

Toggle Enable Analytics Tracking to on. Once active, every notification shown on the front end fires a lightweight beacon request recording: notification type, event (impression or click), content name and URL, sharing network (where applicable), device type, and the page URL and title. Up to 500 log entries are stored; older entries roll off automatically.

Reading the Dashboard #

• Summary cards — Total impressions, total clicks, and overall click-through rate (CTR) across all notification types.
• By Type — Impressions, clicks, and CTR broken down by notification type (Share, WooCommerce, Activity, Promo, Custom). A visual bar shows relative CTR.
• By Content — The top 30 individual posts, products, or items that generated the most impressions, with the sharing network shown in parentheses where relevant. The notification type badge appears on each row so you can see which type drove each result.
• By Device — Impressions and clicks split by Desktop, Tablet, and Mobile.

A Reset Analytics button at the bottom of the tab permanently clears all stored log entries.

Template Variables Reference #

Each notification type has its own set of variables you can use inside message templates. Variables are wrapped in curly braces. Use [nl] anywhere in a template to create a line break.

Share Notifications #

Variable	Output
{title}	Post or page title
{value}	Share count for that network
{network}	Network name (e.g. Facebook, X)
{link}	URL of the current post

WooCommerce Order Notifications #

Variable	Output
{name}	Customer first name
{city}	Customer billing city
{country}	Customer billing country
{product}	Product name
{time}	Relative time (e.g. “2 hours ago”)

Woo Promo Notifications PRO #

Variable	Output
{title}	Product name
{price_regular}	Original price (formatted with currency symbol)
{price_sale}	Sale price (formatted)
{discount_pct}	Discount percentage including % sign (e.g. 40%)
{discount_amount}	Discount amount in currency (e.g. $20.00)
{date_end}	Sale end date (formatted)
{date_end_label}	Contextual label: “Ends today!”, “Ends tomorrow!”, or “Ends in N days”
{category}	Primary product category name

Sharing Activity Notifications #

Variable	Output
{name}	Visitor identifier (or “Someone” when anonymised)
{network}	Network name
{title}	Shared post title
{time}	Relative time of the share event

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Frequently Asked Questions #

Do I need Easy Social Share Buttons to use Proofly? #

No. WooCommerce order notifications, Woo Promo notifications, and Custom notifications all work without ESSB. Share count and Sharing Activity notifications require ESSB to be installed and active. If ESSB is missing, Proofly shows an admin notice and those two notification types are silently skipped.

Why am I not seeing any notifications on my site? #

• Check that Enable Notifications on the General tab is toggled on.
• Make sure at least one notification type is enabled on its own tab.
• The initial delay defaults to 10 seconds — wait for it.
• Some caching plugins or page builders strip inline scripts; try with caching disabled.
• If you are logged in and Visitor Types is set to Logged-out only, you will not see notifications.

Does Proofly work with page caching? #

Yes. Proofly outputs notification data as a JSON blob in a small inline script tag. This data is generated fresh on each server request before caching, and the JavaScript engine on the browser side handles all display logic. Most full-page cache setups are compatible, though some aggressive fragment-caching configurations may need the Proofly script tag excluded from the cache.

Is visitor data sent to external servers? #

No. Analytics tracking (Pro) stores all data locally in your WordPress database. The analytics beacon posts to your own site’s admin-ajax.php endpoint. No data leaves your server.

Can I show different notifications on different pages? #

Yes, with Proofly Pro. The global targeting in General lets you show the entire notification system only on selected pages. Each notification type (Share, WooCommerce, Activity) also has its own independent display targeting setting, so you can show WooCommerce notifications everywhere but limit Share notifications to blog posts only, for example.

How do I reset everything and start over? #

Go to General → Danger Zone → Reset All Settings and confirm. This restores all options to their factory defaults without affecting any WooCommerce orders, share counts, or analytics data.