People are largely motivated by two things: reward and regret. This is especially true in the buying and opt-in process. Business owners and bloggers largely focus on marketing rewards, but less often on marketing the potential for regret.

Regret is a painful emotion, and we as a people would do a lot to avoid pain. This includes buying things unexpectedly or on impulse because we don’t want to regret not taking advantage of a great offer, or missing the opportunity to be included.

Formally, this kind of conversion strategy is known as FOMO marketing (meaning Fear of Missing Out, for you Nokia flip phone, AOL email users out there). To make this strategy work for you, you’ll need to generate a sense of urgency, a feeling that everyone else is buying and your potential consumer can get in on it, or that your product or service will not last in its current form for much longer.

Generating this requires your users to see what’s going on with your site. They need to see testimonials and limited time offers. They have to interact with pop ups. These are what widgets are for.

Learn what widgets are, how to use FOMO for marketing, and some of the best FOMO widget services to make these strategies work for you.

FOMO Marketing Strategies: Creating Connection and Urgency

FOMO marketing is not as simple as holding a sale or sending out a coupon, although those can be included in your strategy. FOMO has deep psychological roots, and taking advantage of those is how to make this phenomenon work for you.

The Psychology of FOMO

FOMO as a concept is largely associated with the rise in social media.

This is natural, as FOMO is thought to stem from the need to be included in a group, and the need to grab onto opportunities that may strengthen one’s likelihood to survive and thrive. Social media both promotes the idea of grouping and presents one with opportunities (especially given that social media is free for you only because your attention is being sold to advertisers constantly making offers).

Social media circa 2020 has taken an unexpected toll on people, though, especially on millennials, who have the awareness to experience FOMO and the money to try and stop it.

2020 marketing statistics show that FOMO manifests as a blend of mostly negative emotions, with people reporting feeling envious (39%), jealous (30%) and sadness (21%). When it comes to social media, 56% of people reported being afraid of being left out if they are not connected.

70% of millennials experience FOMO, and 46% report overspending to alleviate the feeling.

The largest contributors to FOMO among this demographic are travel (59%), parties and events (56%) and food (29%). It’s not surprising: think back to a friend’s post about spending a week in Maui, or an enticing picture of a meal out. You have to feel a little left out when you’re sitting at a desk eating a soggy salad for lunch.

And of course, people are always looking for buying opportunities. When people know your product is always available, they’re less motivated to buy now, because they can do it later. They also have more time to consider whether your product is worth it or not, which can lead to them passing. Creating limited time offers generates a sense of urgency, and with it, FOMO. Social media is flooded with limited time offers, contributing to the development of FOMO on the missed opportunity front.

With this in mind, you have to use FOMO as a marketing strategy responsibility. There are tactics that can generate a sense of connection and regret aversion without damaging the mental health of your consumer base.

FOMO Marketing Tactics: Getting schooled by a marketing giant.

No one knows FOMO like Starbucks does. (No one knows most things like Starbucks does.) They generate it on the daily, and throughout the year.

Think holiday flavors: you know when they’re coming up, and you know they’re not there to stay. They generate excitement about the arrival of these annual drinks, and get people looking forward to them through social media. Then, they broadcast the very last day they’ll be offering these specials, generating that “get it before it’s gone” sensation.

They also offer “Star Specials” on their app, which—in the mobile and COVID era—is becoming increasingly relevant. They specifically advertise strict start and end dates for these specials, and they’re usually in some “buy this for seven days in a row and then you get a free thing” format, urging people to continuously spend.

They launch these deals sporadically, so that you don’t feel like you can “skip it” and wait until next time. Who knows when next time will be? And you’ve already started seven days just by buying a coffee, so you might as well keep going, right?

And finally, they offer exclusive “Star Rewards” for their credit card holders, including a 4,000 star reward when you sign up. Star Rewards are put towards free stuff, which you’d get a lot of after signing up. If you are a member, you get perks. You are a part of something, and something exclusive, which is very attractive for those who want to be “in the know.”

Widgets: What They Are and Why They Matter

If you have ever made a website using a front-end web builder like WordPress (so about 30% of all website owners, including myself) then you’ve heard of plugins and widgets.

A common question among beginners: What’s the difference?

Plugins are extensions or pieces of software that are downloaded and then installed on your site to add functionality to it. They are literal lines of code that are added to the existing code that makes up your website. They may add user functionality to the site, or may add things like analytics software to the back end of your site.

Widgets, on the other hand, are visual representations of plugins that users can see, and often can interact with. These include things like search bars, banners advertising sales, chat boxes and testimonials. They are added to your website design in widget friendly areas like headers, footers and sidebars. Your entire site is made of code, though, so you’ll need to install a plugin to get that visual representation and functionality.

Related: Want to make great web banners but don’t have an artsy bone in your body? Here are the best banner makers for ads that convert.

Bottom line: All widgets are plugins, but not all plugins are widgets. All widgets are meant for your users, but not all plugins are.

Widgets are how your customer interacts with your site. Imagine no search bars, no menus, no payment option displays or pop up deals. For all intents and purposes, is that really even a website?

Related: Making a WordPress site? Here are all the best WordPress marketplaces to find plugins that take your site to the next level.

You now have all the background knowledge needed to take full advantage of the best FOMO widget services for FOMO marketing.

9 Highly Convertible FOMO Marketing Strategies that Rely on Widgets

1. Show that others are joining in on a community through notifications and testimonials.
2. Generate a sense of scarcity through showing limited stock.
3. Offer one-time-only incentives to keep potential leads from exiting.
4. Generate urgency through content and promotion expirations.
5. Create a sense of exclusivity through subscription and membership offerings.
6. Show social proof by displaying real-time user engagement.
7. Display user generated content to entice potential customers.
8. Offer limited rewards for early subscribers or buyers.
9. Use cross-selling and upselling to generate a sense of missing out on a complete package.’

These common and effective marketing strategies all tie into the desire for inclusion and the desire to avoid regret.

Best FOMO Widget Services for FOMO Marketing Tactics

All of the above marketing tactics rely on what the user perceives. So widgets are going to be doing the heavy lifting here in terms of generating the two types of FOMO. The best FOMO widget services offer tools that allow you to take advantage of several marketing strategies.

Widget providers that generate a sense of urgency:

• Nudgify: Reduce buyer uncertainty with time and product constraint displays.
• Poptin: Make use of the most cost effective exit-intent and promo pop ups (includes a free plan).
• Deadline Funnel: Create and deploy “limited time only” evergreen campaigns that convert.

Widget providers that generate a sense of community and social proof:

• NotificationX: Show purchasing, readership, signups and engagement in real-time with pop ups.
• Repuso: Gather and display reviews and user generated content from all outlets in one place.
• Yotpo: Display top tier user generated content from social media and review platforms.

Get yourself a widget provider that does it all:

• K Factors: Use a suite of notifications, pop ups and reviews for many sites for a good price.
• Optinmonster: Use several tools to create several industry specific campaigns that convert.

Nudgify: Best FOMO Widget Service to Put the Heat on Your Customer

Nudgify has an entire “Nudge Library” of tools to nudge your customer towards conversion using pop ups and floating notifications. This library includes Low Stock Nudges, which display the number of a product left, and Selling Fast nudges, which estimate how long until a product will remain available. The Order Soon nudge is akin to the Amazon ordering structure: if you want it by a specific day, you have to order it within hours, which stimulates a sense of urgency.

All of Nudgify’s tools are centered on urgency, FOMO, social proof, and friction reduction (smoothing and simplifying the buying process). You also have the ability to create your own custom nudges.

This service offers many tools for marketing, including rating, review and recent purchase pop ups.

Nudgify has the best FOMO widgets to create a sense of urgency and reduce uncertainty in your leads. Nudge them gently, then make the sale.

Poptin: For Cost Effective Exit Pop Ups

Poptin’s field of expertise is all things pop up. They have developed 40+ templates for pop ups, which can be deployed online, on mobile, or both. You can create forms, deploy autoresponders, and develop exit, inactivity and autopilot triggers. Every plan allows for A/B testing of pop ups and support from Poptin’s team.

Higher plans offer targeting, account management, and statistical information.

But really, Poptin’s Free and Basic plans offer a lot. If you’re an entrepreneur or very small business, this is the best FOMO widget product provider to generate pop ups. Keep your leads from bouncing. Tastefully.

Deadline Funnel: For “Limited Time Only” Campaigns

Deadline Funnel is a powerful conversion funnel tool that specifically caters to time based marketing campaigns.

Related: Have no idea what conversion funnels are? Follow me down the metaphorical rabbit hole of marketing. And find the best funnel builders.

“Blueprints” are Deadline Funnel’s predefined conversion funnels, and are meant to be evergreen. They, like physical blueprints, can be used over and over again to amass a consumer base. Predefined Blueprints include:

• Email Sequence With Special Offer: Connect your email sequences with this funnel to generate special offers, with unique deadlines, for your subscribers
• Automated Webinar: Integrate your webinars with Deadline Funnel to generate special offers for webinar attendees, with the offer expiring 3-7 days after attendance
• Product Launch: Automate the entire product launch process, with hard deadlines
• 15-Minute Optin Upsell: Offer a new subscriber a low-cost offer that expires within 15 minutes of subscribing
• Special Offer for X Buyers: Automatically deliver special offers for the first x number of buyers through sales tracking
• Shopify Promotion: Create a unique discount code for subscribers to use on Shopify

The widget manifestation on the user end looks like countdowns, floating bars, CTA buttons, customized pop up offers, etc.

Deadline Funnel integrates nicely with other ecommerce and marketing tools such as ActiveCampaign, Thrive Cart and Unbounce. Deadline Funnel has the very best FOMO widgets for limited time offer campaigns that can be used for continuous conversion.

NotificationX: To Show Real-Time User Engagement

The idea behind sales, subscription, and commenting pop ups, usually placed in the bottom corner of a site page, is that other people are getting in on something, so you, the buyer, should too.

These kinds of notification tools are known as social proof tools. They generate not only FOMO, but trustworthiness. If (apparently) so many other people are actively engaging with your product or service, it must be worth something.

NotificationX offers 6 notification types, including sales alerts, blog engagement, email subscriptions, WordPress activity, and notification bars. You can start with one of 30 template designs, and customize it to fit your needs. Or you can design your notifications from scratch. Add content, buttons and countdowns. Specify how many times you want notifications to show, where they show, and then publish.

These tools integrate well with WooCommerce, Mailchimp, ConvertKit and other marketing tools. NotificationX’s widgets are neat and useful, and they offer the best FOMO widgets for increasing engagement. Let internet users know they’re not alone. And they shouldn’t want to be.

Repuso: Best FOMO Widgets for Mad Online Social Cred

Repuso is a reputation management service. It combs through all of your social media, from Facebook to Trip Advisor to the Better Business Bureau, and gathers them all in one place to be strategically used by you.

You can create showcasing widgets in several formats, from grids to floating badges. One of their most appealing review widgets allows you to display review statistics, like number of reviews and star ratings, in Google’s search results. This builds trust and credibility for your site.

Curating user generated content, whether its written reviews, Instagram posts or demo videos, builds up a community without any work on your end. Reposo offers several ways to participate with their audience, including the ability to feature product users on your site. Organic, unpaid content from real users is worth more than any other marketing tactic.

And it gives you mad online credibility in general.

Reposo is the absolute best FOMO widget service to curate and display user generated content from several outlets, with little work on your end. Reposo builds a sense of community and trust that anyone would want to be a part of—really, who wouldn’t want to be featured on your site?

Yotpo: Best FOMO Widget Service to Generate User Reviews, Ratings and User Engagement

Yotpo focuses heavily on user generated content as a way to build credibility and create a sense of community. They make it easy to both request reviews, using an on-page review system, and curate reviews from other outlets.

Reviews and ratings are consistently present on site pages, including home pages, product description pages, and during checkout. Adding visual marketing tactics, like videos and Instagram posts displaying products being used, generates a sense of desire, and a longing to look like or act like others.

Some widget services from Yotpo:

• Reviews and Ratings
• Loyalty and Referrals
• SMS Marketing
• Visual User Generated Content
• Consumer Insights

Widgets appear on the page through reviews, ratings and product displays. Loyalty and referral widgets can be customized to fit your brand. Reward structures are flexible, as you can choose between pre-built campaigns, or design one from scratch. They have intelligent pop up interactions, especially for email captures, which can be tied into subscription promos.

On the back end of your site, Yotpo allows you to measure human behavior, ROI of campaigns, and effectiveness of individual widgets, among a score of other metrics. Learn as you go, and change your strategies with ease.

Yotpo is one of the best FOMO widget services to gain credibility, and to show user generated content that motivates people to buy. Others look so happy in pictures, and sound so happy in their shining reviews—who wouldn’t want to get in on that?

K Factors: Low Cost Widget Services for High Traffic Sites, and for Those with Several Sites

Many of the above services focus on specific elements of FOMO marketing tactics.

K Factors, on the other hand, offers a more holistic solution that covers all of your site needs, and for a good price. Unlike many other FOMO widget services, K Factors offers service for more sites, and higher traffic sites, than any other plan out there.

The Free plan alone allows you to use this service for 2 sites and 5,000 pageviews/month. The Business plan allows for 5 websites and 10,000 pageviews/month. The Agency plan allows widget services to be used for 50 websites and 1,000,000 pageviews/month.

Services like Optinmonster (below), which are the closest comparable widget service to K Factors, only offer services for 5 websites, max. Also unlike Optinmonster, K Factors has no ads on any plan. Custom branding is offered for all but the Free plan, whereas Optinmonster only offers it for their highest plan.

K Factor is at the forefront of notifications and pop ups

Example widgets included in plans:

• Live counters that show current user engagement with your site.
• Conversions counters that show how many conversions you have made to date.
• Modal collectors that prompt users to subscribe, to inform about a deal, etc., thereby collecting leads.
• Score feedback, which is the easiest way to collect feedback from your users.
• Emoji feedback, which is an easy and highly visual way to gather feedback
• Random review, which randomly chooses testimonials to show on pages.

They employ a sense of urgency through countdown timers that generate a desire to buy now, instead of regretting later. Users of K Factors can add coupon bars as well.

The provider also considers the functionality of a website as a whole, and include widgets that help your site perform better, such as:

• Informational bars, which are fully customizable, to tell users more about your offerings.
• CTA modals to motivate users to act.
• Photo and video widgets, to display information and feedback about your offerings.
• Cookie notifications, to let users know about data usage and privacy options.
• Custom branding, to build consumer loyalty and remembrance.

K Factors shows live demos of each widget, and offers analytics tools to measure the success of notifications and user engagement widgets. Widgets are all fully customizable, responsive to different page displays, and can be added to most site builders, including WordPress, Wix, Squarespace and Shopify.

K Factors is the leader in notification marketing tactics, and is the best FOMO widget service for generating reviews, testimonials, prompts, and engagement counters quickly and easily. Their review and rating capture methods are so easy that more people will be willing to give their feedback.

They are also the best provider in terms of pricing, if you have more than 1-2 sites you’re working on.

Optinmonster: Go X-Games Mode in the Ecommerce Sphere

Optinmonster is an apt name for this widget service provider, as they offer many industry and goal specific tools for opt-ins and conversions.

Their drag-and-drop builder includes:

• Pre-made, customizable templates, to match your brand and goals
• Yes/No forms, which are an easy way to generate leads
• Mobile-friendly pop ups, to reach all device types
• Canvas, which allows you to create custom designs, with no coding needed on your end

You can launch the following campaign types:

• Lightbox Pop Ups: Grow your email list quickly
• Fullscreen Welcome Mat: Display a CTA that just can’t be ignored
• Floating Bar: Footer/header bars with special offers scrolls with your user
• Countdown Timer: Create urgency and scarcity with well designed clocks or timers
• Coupon Wheel Optins: Create interactive spin-a-wheel campaigns with prizes to increase sales

They offer several customizations in terms of campaign triggers, so you can time exactly when to make your offers. This is a very important feature: potential leads will bounce if too many pop ups keep users from consuming content.

They may also exit your site if they find pop ups make your site difficult to navigate. No one wants to see the same pop ups on every single page, and no one wants them in the way of widgets like menus, social sharing buttons and purchasing buttons.

Optinmonster integrates seamlessly with several other marketing and communications tools, like Mailchimp, Facebook and Hubspot. The basic plan offers basic reporting, while more advanced plans offer advanced reporting, A/B testing for campaigns, priority support and custom branding capabilities.

Optinmonster pricing pain: Is it worth it?

The Basic plan only allows for 3500 pageviews, and will only act on 1 site. The Plus plan will only allow you to use their services for 2 sites. The Pro can only be used for 3, and their highest plan only allows for 5 sites.

This is probably one of the biggest (and one of the only) drawbacks of this service. Their features are amazing, but can only be used for 5 websites and 250,000 pageviews a month. If you have higher needs than that, you will have to discuss a custom plan with the Optinmonster team.

Also important to note: first-time buyers will automatically be billed for the entire year at the time of purchase.

They have a great sale right now, that is definitely worth taking advantage of. (If this content goes evergreen, which—fingers crossed, am I right?—I can’t speak to their usual pricing structures.)

If you are looking to grow an ecommerce business, I recommend nothing less than the Pro plan, as many of those great ecommerce features and campaign capabilities don’t become fully available before then. If you are just looking to grow user engagement and email lists, the Plus plan offers an all-in-one solution for your needs. Instead of getting the Basic plan and adding several other tools, like chat widgets and A/B testing plugins, you can just get the Plus plan.

Optinmonster is the best FOMO widget service for generating leads and conversions—especially in the ecommerce sphere—if you have a small number of sites. It has incredible trigger customization options and well developed opt-in campaigns. Higher level plans offer powerful ecommerce and analytics capabilities that you would have to get from several different providers. It integrates easily with other services that you have signed up for.

It is not the best service for if you don’t want to commit to a full year of service just yet. It is definitely not the best service if you don’t have the cash to drop on an entire year’s worth of service at the time of purchase

FOMO can be used for good in marketing. But only if you use the right tools at the right times.

FOMO marketing tactics require a balance: you have to instill urgency, but not panic. You have to create a connected, cohesive community of users and buyers that others want to join in on, not an inaccessible or elitist one. You have to motivate users, without overwhelming them.

If your site turns up the heat too much on your potential leads, then they will bounce. If your notifications, pop ups and forms are dull and repetitive, users will bounce. If you have no rhyme or rhythm to your campaigns, they will flop.

The best FOMO widget services keep this in mind, and offer a wide array of campaign options and customizable widgets. You should be able to decide on every aspect of your widgets, including how often they show up on pages, which pages they show up on, and what they say. The best campaigns should be able to be deployed again for new projects, products and special offerings.

If you use widgets wisely, then yes, FOMO marketing can be used for good.