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Boost Your Proposal to the Top of List

kochubei_valeria
Community Member

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.

629 Comments
adnan771
Community Member

This is going to be an exciting feature. Many new freelancers do not even read the client job posting and sending a copy-and-paste proposal.

 

And if any freelancer writes an excellent, to-the-point proposal, it will undoubtedly take a few minutes to write until the client receives a 30-50 proposal in no time.

And the client did not pay attention to the deserving freelancer who provided the best proposal, and his/her proposal goes down and most clients did not bother scrolling down the page, and some clients immediately set the job "invite-only".

Let's see how useful this feature is.

feed_my_eyes
Community Member

Claudia Z wrote:

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.


Okaaaay, except that Upwork themselves said that spam bidding was a problem on their website; that's why they implemented paid connects in the first place (we used to get 60 free connects per month). I'm just interested in knowing how they came to the conclusion that this is no longer a problem. 

arunkumar60
Community Member

Hi Valerie- I just saw this feature and boosted  on an application although I had questions however coming to the community section and reading things have cleared those for me.

 

Few thoughts :-

 

1) Whenever I used to do a google search, the first couple or 4 results are ads, I used to never click on those untill I joined a Digital Marketing class. I click those now just for fun.

 

2) I have always avoided ads and paid promotion and have always gone to check the organic results. Do you think clients would be doing the same?

 

Not sure if this will backfire , or will be good -Fingers crossed, would like ot hear feedback.

 

On another note, I really liked the jobs which had 6 connects needed as that would ensure less of competition on bids and relevant proposal submission.

 

Now with 1 connect per job post, may be its like random applications again. Hopefully Upwork would know that and do the best for clients and freelancers!

arunkumar60
Community Member

Also- If I bid on a Project and Used boost, will I get 10 connects if the client replies? 

claudiacezy
Community Member

Christine A wrote:


Okaaaay, except that Upwork themselves said that spam bidding was a problem on their website; that's why they implemented paid connects in the first place (we used to get 60 free connects per month). I'm just interested in knowing how they came to the conclusion that this is no longer a problem. 


Where did they say that? I'm not reading the forum on a regular basis, I'm not saying they didn't say it but that would be mind blowing, it's like shooting oneself in the foot.

 

I found this comment from Upwork "Experienced freelancers have noted that newer or inexperienced freelancers saturate or spam clients with irrelevant proposals, which creates unnecessary friction." ... this doesn't mean Upwork said ... it just means they listened to feedback.

AveryO
Community Manager

Hi Arun, 


I'm glad most of your questions about this test were answered by the discussion on this thread. As for question 2, I don't have answers for that since I don't have information about a client's hiring activities, but hopefully, this test will shed more light on it. 

 

As for your second post, you are referring to the Connects awarded to a freelancer/agency for each interview freelancers/agencies receive and respond to. This test will not affect how these Connects are awarded. 

claudiacezy
Community Member

Maria T wrote:


And again, why would an inexperienced freelancer with no work done be above me in the list that the client sees? Just because he has decided to spend a few connects for the customer to believe that he is the most suitable.


Some of you are way positive that newbies will be those boosting the proposal ... while many aren't yet ready to get that job, there are as well many others qualified for that job. It's easy to decline the no way ... but difficult to decide when you have several qualified proposals.


I don't know exactly how proposals from agencies work ... maybe that's something to keep an eye on to prevent unfair boosting manipulation practices, possibly the agencies will dominate the highlighted spots.

grimesr
Community Member

I will just flat out say this is a bad idea.

 

I don't know of any industry where sending in bids for say, a construction job, would get the customer to look at it if I paid a little more to send it to them.

 

This has just turned the bidding process into a nightmare guessing game.

webdev7847
Community Member

It's a great step. Now the bidders will have onw option if they want to spend much connects for any proposal or not. Like it 

efc5e71c
Community Member
Why is this positive remark the only one you respond to?

There have been some very significant concerns addresses here.

Experienced freelancers have brought up some excellent questions that you and Upwork continue to ignore.

So I ask you, when will upwork clarify this policy and answer the very pressing concerns that have been voiced?