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Discover why browser-based webinar software can improve attendee experience by reducing friction. Compare Zoom, Webex, GoTo Meeting, Livestorm, BigMarker, and WebbySalesPro.
When someone clicks your webinar invitation, you have only a few seconds to get them into the event.
Every additional step—downloading software, creating an account, granting permissions, or updating an application—creates friction. And friction costs attendees.
While there isn't a public study proving that requiring a download reduces attendance by a specific percentage, decades of conversion optimization research consistently shows that every extra step in a user journey increases abandonment.
For webinar hosts, that means the joining experience can be just as important as the webinar itself.
Think about your own behavior.
You receive an email reminding you that a webinar starts in five minutes.
You click the link.
Instead of joining immediately, you're asked to:
At every one of those steps, attendees can leave.
Common reasons include:
Each interruption increases the chance they'll never make it into your webinar.
Modern webinar platforms increasingly emphasize browser-first experiences.
Instead of downloading software, attendees simply click a link and join.
Benefits include:
This is why several leading webinar platforms highlight "no download required" as one of their primary selling points.
BigMarker markets itself as modern, browser-based webinar software with no downloads required.
The company also shares customer success stories highlighting improved attendance and participation, including examples from organizations such as Amazon Business and Northwestern University.
The key message isn't just the webinar features—it's reducing the friction between invitation and attendance.
Livestorm is also entirely browser-based.
Rather than asking attendees to install software, users join directly through their browser.
Livestorm's customer testimonials frequently mention that browser access helps maximize participation by making it easier for attendees to join.
Platforms like Zoom, Webex, and GoTo Meeting were originally designed around meetings rather than webinar marketing funnels.
Although most now offer browser access in some capacity, their primary experience still centers around desktop or mobile applications.
For internal company meetings, this usually isn't a problem because employees already have the software installed.
For public webinars, however, attendees often don't.
That difference matters.
Many webinar hosts spend weeks improving:
Yet overlook one of the biggest conversion points:
The Join Button.
If joining takes longer than expected, attendees can disappear before they ever hear your presentation.
Joining the webinar is only part of the customer journey.
Once attendees are engaged, additional friction can also reduce purchases.
Traditional webinar workflows often require users to:
Every extra click creates another opportunity for drop-off.
WebbySalesPro was built around minimizing friction throughout the entire webinar experience.
Instead of sending attendees across multiple websites, the platform focuses on keeping engagement and purchasing inside the live session.
Key capabilities include:
By removing unnecessary steps, hosts can spend less time solving technical issues and more time engaging their audience.
There is currently no universally accepted public benchmark proving that requiring a software download decreases webinar attendance by a fixed percentage.
However, the broader evidence from user experience and conversion optimization is clear:
Every additional step in a customer journey increases the likelihood of abandonment.
For webinar platforms, reducing friction means making it as easy as possible for attendees to:
Browser-based webinar software aligns with that philosophy by eliminating one of the biggest obstacles: the download.
As online events continue to evolve, the easiest webinar to join is often the one that attracts—and retains—the most attendees.