Friction
What is friction in marketing?
Friction is any obstacle or barrier that makes it harder for a customer to complete an action you want — buying, booking, signing up, getting in touch. It can appear at any point in the customer journey, and it has a direct effect on satisfaction and conversion rates.
Four types of friction
- Physical: tangible barriers in physical settings, such as poor shop layout or lack of accessibility.
- Technological: a slow website, a broken basket, a poor mobile experience.
- Cognitive: information that confuses or overloads — unclear product descriptions, too many options.
- Emotional: doubts that undermine trust, such as worries about payment security or bad past service experiences.
Common examples on a website
- Long sign-up forms. Ask only for what you need; allow social login where it fits.
- Poor mobile experience. Sites that are not responsive lose visitors fast.
- Intrusive ads and pop-ups that interrupt reading.
- Complicated checkout. Too many steps or technical errors lead to abandoned baskets; offer several payment options.
- Hidden costs or contact details that appear late in the process.
How to find and reduce it
Start with data: look at where users drop off in analytics, watch session recordings, and test the key journey yourself on a phone. Fix the biggest drop first, then measure again. Reducing friction is usually the cheapest way to increase conversions, because it works with the traffic you already have. It is a core part of our SEO and UX audits.