The version of this brokers get wrong is not too little friction. It is treating all friction as the same thing, and adding the kinds that cost merchants without removing anyone you would not have called.
Good friction
| Step | What it removes | What it costs |
|---|---|---|
| Mobile one-time passcode, at the end | Fakes, mistyped numbers, VoIP, landlines, company lines | Some completion — only from people who could not receive a code |
| Email verifier | Dead and made-up addresses, via a third-party check that the address is live | Almost nothing |
| Revenue and amount bands | Merchants below the floor, before they become a record | Volume you did not want |
The passcode goes at the end: the merchant completes the application, a six-digit code goes to the number they gave, and until it is entered the application does not submit and no record exists. On our funnel and most of our clients’, that plus the email check holds spam to one to three percent of submissions, across hundreds of thousands of leads.
Bad friction
- Slow page speed. There is no quality argument for it; it is just a page nobody finished building.
- Document upload. Almost never worth it at the application stage. The one defensible version is Plaid for bank statements, and even that raises cost per lead at the same time as quality — a trade to make deliberately, not a default.
- Captcha. Removes nobody worth removing and adds a step for everyone. The passcode already does the job.
- Desktop-first layout. Eighty to ninety percent of the traffic is a phone. A form built for a desktop and squeezed onto a screen loses conversions it never sees.
How you find out which is which
Not by arguing about it. Microsoft Clarity records every session on the page, submitted or abandoned, and shows where people stop. A step that loses forty percent of real merchants at the same point every time is bad friction whatever the theory says.
Questions brokers ask
Yes, as the last step: a six-digit code to the number given, entered before the application submits. It removes fakes, mistyped numbers, VoIP and landlines, and on our funnel it holds spam to one to three percent.
No. It removes nobody worth removing and adds a step for everyone. The one-time passcode already stops the fakes, without asking a real merchant to identify traffic lights.
Usually not. If you do, Plaid is the only version worth running, and it raises cost per lead alongside quality. Make that a budget decision, not a default setting.
Barely. It is a third-party check that the address is real and active, and the only people it stops are the ones typing abcdefg@gmail.com — who were never going to answer a phone either.
Eighty to ninety percent on our account. A form that is not built for a phone first is losing conversions it will never see in the data.