Toast popup notifications are small alerts that slide into the corner of your screen showing recent activity — someone subscribing, making a purchase, or signing up. They add a layer of live social proof on top of the static trust elements already on your page.
This guide walks through every setting in the Easy Social Proof Pro toast notification panel, explains what each one does, and suggests starting values that work for most sites.
Before You Start
Toast popups are a Pro feature. You will need Easy Social Proof Pro installed and your licence key activated. If you have not done that yet, follow the Getting Started With Easy Social Proof guide first.
Toast popup settings are not in the block editor like the trust widget and trust badges. Instead, they live in the WordPress admin under Settings → Easy Social Proof Pro.
Step 1: Enable Toast Notifications
At the top of the settings page, tick the “Show toast notifications on the frontend” checkbox. This is the master switch — nothing else matters until this is enabled.
Step 2: Choose Your Data Source
The Data Source dropdown gives you three options:
Simulated — generates popups using random names. This is the right choice when you are just getting started, testing the feature, or running a site that does not have transaction data yet. The popups look real to visitors, but the data is generated rather than pulled from actual activity.
WooCommerce — pulls real purchase data from your WooCommerce orders. When a customer completes a purchase, their first name and order details populate the popup automatically. This is the strongest option for active stores because every popup represents a real transaction.
SubPress — connects to SubPress subscription data. If you run a newsletter or membership site with SubPress, this shows real subscription activity in your popups.
Which should you choose? If you have an active WooCommerce store with regular sales, use WooCommerce. If you run SubPress, use that. If you are new or do not have either, start with Simulated — you can always switch to real data later as your site grows.
Step 3: Set Where Popups Appear
The Display On setting controls which pages show toast notifications. You have three options:
All pages — popups appear everywhere on your site. Simple, but not always ideal. You probably do not want popups on your privacy policy or terms and conditions pages.
Homepage only — popups only show on your front page. A safe starting point if you want to test the feature without committing to site-wide display.
Selected pages — the most precise option. Tick individual pages where you want popups to appear. This is the recommended approach for most sites because it lets you target high-value pages (your homepage, product pages, pricing page) while keeping popups off pages where they would feel out of place.
Recommended starting point: Enable popups on your homepage and any page with a call to action — pricing pages, product pages, and landing pages. Skip blog posts, legal pages, and account dashboards.
Step 4: Write Your Message Template
The Message Template field controls what each popup says. Use {name} as a placeholder that gets replaced with the customer name (real or generated, depending on your data source).
Default: {name} just subscribed (example)
Good templates:
{name} just subscribed— clean and simple for newsletter or membership sites{name} just made a purchase— generic but works for any store{name} just joined— good for communities and SaaS products{name} just signed up for the Pro plan— specific product mention adds credibility
Tips for effective templates:
- Keep it short. The popup is a small element — long messages get truncated or look cramped.
- Match the action to your data source. If you are using WooCommerce, mention purchasing. If SubPress, mention subscribing.
- Be honest. If you are using simulated data, do not write a template that implies specific product purchases. “{name} just visited” or “{name} just signed up” is fine. “{name} just purchased the Enterprise plan” with fake data is not.
Step 5: Configure Timing
Four settings control when popups appear and how long they stay visible. Getting these right is the difference between subtle social proof and annoying interruptions.
Initial Delay
What it does: How many seconds to wait after a page loads before the first popup appears.
Default: 5 seconds
Why it matters: Visitors need a moment to orient themselves on the page before popups start. If the first notification fires instantly on page load, it competes with your headline and hero section for attention. Five seconds gives people time to start reading before the first notification slides in.
Suggestion: 5-8 seconds. Shorter if the page is simple (a landing page). Longer if the page has a lot to take in.
Display Duration
What it does: How many seconds each popup stays visible before disappearing.
Default: 3 seconds
Why it matters: Too short and visitors cannot read it. Too long and it feels like it is stuck there. Three seconds is enough to register the message without overstaying.
Suggestion: 3-5 seconds. If your message template is longer, give it an extra second.
Pause Between Bursts
What it does: The gap between one popup (or burst of popups) disappearing and the next one appearing. This uses a range slider — you set a minimum and maximum value, and the actual pause is randomised between those two numbers.
Default: 8 seconds to 20 seconds
Why it matters: Randomisation is the key to making popups feel natural. Real purchases do not happen at perfectly regular intervals. A popup every exactly 10 seconds feels robotic. A popup that appears after 8 seconds, then 15, then 11, then 19 feels like genuine activity.
Suggestion: Keep the default range of 8-20 seconds. If you want popups to feel more active, tighten the range (6-12 seconds). If you want them more subtle, widen it (10-30 seconds).
Max Burst Size
What it does: Controls how many popups can appear in a single burst. Each burst shows a random number of notifications from 1 up to this value.
Default: 1
Why it matters: Set to 1, you get single popups one at a time. Set to 2 or 3, you occasionally get a quick succession of popups — simulating a moment where several people take action in quick succession. This can look like a busy rush and creates a stronger impression, but it can also feel overwhelming if overused.
Suggestion: Start with 1. If your site has high genuine traffic, try 2 to simulate natural bursts of activity.
Gap Within Burst
What it does: When a burst contains multiple popups, this controls the delay between each one appearing.
Default: 0.3 seconds
Why it matters: A 0.3-second gap makes stacked popups appear almost simultaneously, like several people acted at once. A longer gap (1-2 seconds) makes them feel more sequential.
Suggestion: Leave at 0.3 if you use bursts. Only relevant when Max Burst Size is greater than 1.
Step 6: Style the Popup
Two colour settings and a position dropdown control the popup’s appearance:
Background Colour — the popup’s background. Default is blue (#0451ac or similar). Match this to your site’s brand colours or keep it a contrasting colour so it catches attention without clashing.
Text Colour — the text inside the popup. Default is white (#FFFFFF). Make sure there is enough contrast with your background colour for readability.
Position — which corner of the screen the popup appears in. Bottom Right is the default and the most common choice — it stays out of the way of navigation elements and main content. Other positions may be available in the dropdown if Bottom Right conflicts with other elements on your site (like a chat widget).
Styling tip: Subtle beats flashy. A popup that blends with your site’s colour scheme and appears quietly in the corner feels like part of the experience. A bright red popup that clashes with everything feels like an ad.
Step 7: Save and Test
Click Save Toast Settings at the bottom of the page. Then open your site in an incognito window (so you see the frontend as a visitor would) and wait for the initial delay to pass. You should see your first popup slide in.
Things to check:
- Does the popup appear on the correct pages?
- Is the message template displaying correctly with names?
- Is the timing comfortable — not too aggressive, not too infrequent?
- Does the popup position work with your site layout (no overlapping with chat widgets or cookie banners)?
- Are the colours readable and on-brand?
Recommended Settings for Common Scenarios
New site with no sales data: Data Source: Simulated. Message: “{name} just signed up.” Initial Delay: 5s. Display Duration: 3s. Pause: 10-25s. Burst Size: 1. Display on homepage only.
Active WooCommerce store: Data Source: WooCommerce. Message: “{name} just made a purchase.” Initial Delay: 5s. Display Duration: 4s. Pause: 8-20s. Burst Size: 1-2. Display on product pages and homepage.
Newsletter or membership site: Data Source: SubPress. Message: “{name} just subscribed.” Initial Delay: 6s. Display Duration: 3s. Pause: 10-20s. Burst Size: 1. Display on homepage and subscribe page.
When to Turn Them Off
Toast popups are not always the right choice. Turn them off if your site traffic is very low (a popup appearing once every few minutes for a single visitor looks odd), if they conflict with other page elements, or if your audience responds better to quieter, more professional presentation.
Remember that toast popups work best as a supplement to static trust elements — your trust widget, trust badges, and review cards do the heavy lifting. Popups add a sense of live activity on top of that foundation.
For the research on how FOMO popups and trust signals interact, read FOMO vs Trust: Which Type of Social Proof Actually Works?.
For an overview of all Pro features, read Easy Social Proof Pro: Everything in the Upgrade.