Why Response Effort Matters in Marketing: Lessons From Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA)
If you’ve ever picked a shorter checkout line in a store or chosen a product because it was easier to order online, you’ve experienced how response effort influences decisions. In marketing, making things easy for your customers to engage or buy isn’t just about convenience—it’s psychology. By looking at Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), we can uncover why effort matters and how concepts like the matching law and choosing the "easier option" guide consumer behavior.
Let’s talk about why making life easier for your customers can make your campaigns way more effective.
What is Response Effort, and Why Should Marketers Care?
Response effort is a fancy term that describes how much work someone has to do to achieve a goal. In everyday life, you see this play out all the time. Do you walk into a store with long wait times? Probably not. Do you hassle with confusing websites when you’re trying to shop? Nope… you go somewhere else.
In marketing, response effort boils down to this: the easier it is for customers to engage and take action, the more likely they are to do it. If your checkout process is overly complicated, or if your customers have to jump through hoops to find your product or service, you’re losing them.
People want “easy.” Making things convenient and as friction-free as possible should be at the top of every marketer’s priority list.
Understanding Matching Law: People Choose What’s Worth the Effort
Matching law gives us insight into how we allocate our time and effort based on the reinforcement we’ve received in our past experiences. We naturally gravitate towards activities that give us more back for our efforts, and we're less likely to engage in things that don't seem as rewarding. Basically, people tend to put more focus and energy into behaviors or choices that provide more reinforcement, and less into those that offer less.
Let's imagine you're looking at two different loyalty programs. One offers some hefty rewards, such as big discounts or cool perks. However, you must go through a long process of steps to sign up or keep up with it. On the other hand, the other program is a breeze to join, and the benefits are better as it includes more perks. According to matching law, you'd probably be more inclined to opt into the second program, as it provides more reinforcement with less effort.
From a marketing perspective, deliver enough reinforcement, and people are more likely to take the leap and give you repeat business.
So next time you’re setting up a campaign or trying to encourage particular behaviors, keep matching law in mind. It’s all about making sure the payoff feels worth the effort!
Why the Easier Option Wins
Let’s be real: humans are wired to pick the easier option. It’s not laziness… It’s efficiency. Time is currency, and nobody likes wasting currency on unnecessary hurdles.
For marketers, this means asking: how can I make interacting with my brand faster, clearer, and easier? That might mean designing a website that’s super intuitive, creating one-click purchasing options, or automating processes like sign-ups and customer service. You want people to glide through the buying process, not wrestle with it.
This principle applies even to post-purchase experiences. If your product is complicated to use, even if it’s great, that difficulty might cause frustration and discourage repeat business. Offering quick-start guides, tutorials, or top-notch customer support can make your product feel simpler. When marketing, simple is almost always better for the customer.
Require Less Work From Consumers
Here’s the golden rule: don’t make your customers work to interact with you. The more effort you ask of them, the fewer results you’ll get.
For instance, if your email has five steps to claim an offer, you’re losing people at every step. If your checkout asks for unnecessary information, people abandon their carts. And if your website navigation feels like a scavenger hunt, guess what? They’re clicking away to a competitor.
The goal is to remove friction. Think about how you can streamline every part of the experience! From browsing your site to finishing a purchase, one can use tools like autofill features, mobile-friendly designs, suggestions based on past behavior, and simple navigation to make the path from interest to action as easy as humanly possible.
Making “Easy” Your Superpower
Successful marketing is less about flashy campaigns and more about creating experiences people want to engage with. Reducing response effort is one of the most effective ways to make that happen.
When you understand the dynamics of response effort and matching law, it becomes clear that simplifying processes, removing barriers, and choosing “convenience over complexity” gives your brand an edge.
The takeaway is simple: make life easier for your customers. If you do, they’ll choose your brand, stick around, and tell others. A pleasing, effortless experience is always memorable.
