Boost Your Proposal to the Top of List

kochubei_valeria · ‎09-08-2021

Update 10/13: Our Boosted Proposals test has ended, for now, so we can study the results and learn. We sincerely appreciate all of the feedback you gave us during this test, and we’re taking time to review our data and plan some improvements with your input in mind.

We will share more information about our plans for a re-launch of Boosted Proposals. So stay tuned!

Open auctions will run their course; however, no new boosts will be available.

Our goal remains to support the best outcomes for Talent and Clients and help you win more. We’re working to make this feature even better as part of that effort!

We are testing a new way to help you make your proposals stand out to clients. We’re dropping the required price of proposals to 1 Connect and allowing talent to bid for a chance to boost their proposal to appear in one of three promoted slots at the top of the client’s proposal manager. With boosting, you can promote yourself to clients by signalling that you are highly interested in their job. You can use your Connects to boost your proposal and increase the chances of being among the first that’s noticed. When clients see “Highly Interested” next to a blue lightning bolt, they’ll know these proposals are from talent who paid to express their interest by investing extra Connects into their proposal.

How it works

When you submit a proposal, you can choose to boost it by spending additional Connects — whatever amount you think it’s worth. If you bid high enough relative to the other bidders, we’ll boost your proposal to the top of the stack, so it’s one of the first proposals the client sees.

Decide. If you really value a job, choose to bid to be eligible to boost your proposal above others.
Bid. Set the number of Connects you’re willing to use to outbid other freelancers. We encourage you to bid the amount you truly think the job is worth.
Submit. Your proposal will be boosted to the client if your bid is high enough. If another freelancer bids more than you and your proposal is not boosted, we will refund some of your Connects (if boosting did not result in an engagement with a client). You’ll be notified either way and your proposal will still show up for the client, even if you’re outbid.
The auction will last up to 7 days. It starts when the job is posted, and it is cleared after 7 days, or sooner if the job is closed or a hire has been made.
Using Connects. The value of a job is always up to you, and you never have to worry about wasting Connects if you over or underbid.

For example, if a job post allows for 3 boosted proposals, the top 3 bids will win those slots, and the final cost will be set by the lowest of those 3 bids.

So if you spent 7 Connects to boost a proposal, and the lowest of the top 3 bidders spent just 5 — you’re in! Plus, you’ll receive a refund of 2 Connects to match the cost of the lowest qualifying bid.

What if you had bid just 3 Connects instead of 5? No worries! Your proposal won’t be boosted, but it will still show up for the client just like a regular proposal, and you’ll be refunded all the additional Connects you spent to boost your proposal.

We know you put a lot of effort into developing quality proposals, especially for projects you’re excited about. That’s one of the reasons we created the option to bid to boost your proposal, so you have an even better chance of being seen by clients for projects you’re really passionate about. We see this as a way to express your level of interest while increasing the odds of being noticed. So, in cases where boosting your proposal results in an engagement with a client, you will be charged - even if you are outbid, since this exposure can often lead to future interactions. An engagement means one or more of the following was done by the client (in other words, the client engaged a freelancer in at least one of these ways): viewed your proposal, messaged you, shortlisted you, sent an offer, and/or archived or declined your proposal. It’s another way to make your Connects work for you!

Screenshot from September 8, 2021 9_20 AM.png

For more information about boosting your proposals so you’re more likely to land the work you really want, check out our help article.

Excited to try this out? We are eager to gather feedback while we’re testing this feature. Let us know your thoughts so we can continue to make the work marketplace even better for you.

renata101 · ‎09-09-2021

Maria T wrote:
Valeria K wrote:
..........
Excited to try this out? We are eager to gather feedback while we’re testing this feature. Let us know your thoughts so we can continue to make the work marketplace even better for you.
No, I'm not at all excited about this new mess.
Like others I expected that, with all the opinions we already gave when the experiment came to light "by mistake", this would not take place.

I share Maria's feelings about this.

Something I would be excited to find out about is what process typically leads Upwork to make decisions like this. Who generates ideas the ideas that you go forward with, and who needs to approve them? Who determines whether their potential impact on freelancers is good or bad (or more to the point, is there anyone in the company with enough good sense and/or humility to formulate a question about that)? What sort of veto mechanism is there in place to stop people from developing stuff like this? And while you're at it, maybe you could let us in on other ideas the company has in the past considered too bad to move forward on. Maybe a little background would help those of us who can't fathom why something like this was approved.

Is Upwork in deep enough danger that the sale of connects is going to make that big a difference to the company's financial future? Or is this yet another in a series of dumb bells and whistles that people are trotting out just to "do something different"?

m_terrazas · ‎09-09-2021

Renata S wrote:
Maria T wrote:
Valeria K wrote:
..........
Excited to try this out? We are eager to gather feedback while we’re testing this feature. Let us know your thoughts so we can continue to make the work marketplace even better for you.
No, I'm not at all excited about this new mess.
Like others I expected that, with all the opinions we already gave when the experiment came to light "by mistake", this would not take place.
I share Maria's feelings about this.

Something I would be excited to find out about is what process typically leads Upwork to make decisions like this. Who generates ideas the ideas that you go forward with, and who needs to approve them? Who determines whether their potential impact on freelancers is good or bad (or more to the point, is there anyone in the company with enough good sense and/or humility to formulate a question about that)? What sort of veto mechanism is there in place to stop people from developing stuff like this? And while you're at it, maybe you could let us in on other ideas the company has in the past considered too bad to move forward on. Maybe a little background would help those of us who can't fathom why something like this was approved.

Is Upwork in deep enough danger that the sale of connects is going to make that big a difference to the company's financial future? Or is this yet another in a series of dumb bells and whistles that people are trotting out just to "do something different"?

In addition to what Renata says, it would be fine if the person who is responsible for this appeared here so that it is who faces and answers everything that is being raised.
Because you want to collect opinions but here no one is interacting on the part of Upwork.
For other "launches" it has already been done.

2a05aa63 · ‎09-09-2021

Renata S wrote:
Something I would be excited to find out about is what process typically leads Upwork to make decisions like this. Who generates ideas the ideas that you go forward with, and who needs to approve them? Who determines whether their potential impact on freelancers is good or bad (or more to the point, is there anyone in the company with enough good sense and/or humility to formulate a question about that)? What sort of veto mechanism is there in place to stop people from developing stuff like this? And while you're at it, maybe you could let us in on other ideas the company has in the past considered too bad to move forward on. Maybe a little background would help those of us who can't fathom why something like this was approved.

Companies generally hire analysts and strategists for this job. It's not one person. They look at stats and data and do predictions. Then they create a beta and see how they new features work. After they get more data, they either improve the system or remove it. Any change of an existing feature will be greeted with negative opinions, but they don't matter much. There's only few % of the freelancers lurking the forums. The stats and data are what matter. If this change will make revenue and make it easier for clients to hire freelancers then it will stay.

They got away with raising the fee to 20% so there's not much simple complaining will do on other features.

roberty1y · ‎09-09-2021

Maria T wrote:
Robert Y wrote:
I wonder how many people are reading this, compared to threads posted in the main forum. I think putting it under the Announcements heading will mean not many people see it and get a chance to air their views.
You can do something. Create a text explaining the topic and post a thread on "New" and "Clients" and link to this thread
So we may have more opinions.

I could, but they'd probably move my post here. They seem to want to keep the discussion corralled off in the Announcements section.

paul2461981 · ‎09-09-2021

What a crazy idea.

A client posts a job, and a freelancer bid 10 connects more than 2ed. That tells the client the freelancer would love his job. The client is a scammer. The scammer knows the freelancer is more susceptible to get scammed.

That works the other way around as well. If the scammer was the freelancer. As the freelancer bids, 10 connects more than 2ed. The client takes note of the freelancer being keen to get noticed.

kochubei_valeria · ‎09-09-2021

Renata S wrote:

Is there an option for clients to view the non-boosted results if they want to look at an "unadulterated" applicant list?

Hi Renata,

If the job has an option for freelancers to boost their proposals and freelancers do, they'll be shown at the top of the list. The client can't opt out of the experience. That said, all other proposals will be located below and they will be ranked organically just like they are today and client can still archive or decline the proposal and it will be removed from the proposal list. Same applies to boosted proposals.

claudiacezy · ‎09-09-2021

Christine A wrote:
I'd like to know the reasoning behind the decision that only 1 connect will be required to apply to all jobs now. Won't this increase spam bidding and overwhelm clients again? (Yes, it will.) So has Upwork decided that this is magically no longer a problem?

A client posts a job and bidders submit proposals ... each to his own. Calling it spam bidding is an overstatement.

It doesn't cost any connects to apply to jobs on LinkedIn... LinkedIn doesn't provide a way to verify profiles. And the majority of jobs posted there are like for employment (long term engagements) ... not a 5$ logo design.

fe4161df · ‎09-09-2021

That's awesome! Connects are very expensive for us. So if we can decide when or where to use more or less connects, it would be very helpful. Also, a connects refund is really appreciated! BTW, I saw the new feature just for a second and now disappeared.

kfarnell · ‎09-09-2021

Every complication added to the process of bidding on and awarding projects will lead to more potential complaints and/or baffled people. Many of these will take their complaints and confusion to customer service. This will eat stupid amounts of time and energy that could have been spent on doing something actually useful.

Others will go elsewhere - somewhere they don't find as baffling.

kochubei_valeria · ‎09-09-2021

Thanks, Walder Pedro! Since this is still a test, you'll see this option on some jobs but not on others. We hope to expand testing soon though.