Boosting - to boost, or not to boost?

[#1]

About this Boosting --

What is your opinion?

 We generate revenue from both talent and clients, with a majority of our revenue generated from service fees charged to talent for access to our work marketplace, Upwork 10-K Feb 15 ,2022.

[#2]

I am NEVER boosting again. Hasn't helped me one bit. Waste of time, most ridiculous, useless  thing on UPwork in my opinion 

[#3]

Melissa, did you try looking at Proposals, in the Analytics section on the My stats page in the Find Work menu? How your boosted proposals are performing compared to organic?

[#4]

I personally consider it as the worst feature and I believe it is Upwork being unfair to those who are really capable of doing the projects over those who have deep pockets and simply purchase connects and boost their proposals to the top. I tried this boost option and ever since this feature is enabled, I never got any new clients so I have to leave Upwork and I joined Fiverr and Freelancer. Upwork was just and fair when they were preferring freelancers for the jobs who applied the earliest. 

[#5]

I'm about to leave as well. There are a number of other freelancing platforms, as you mentioned Fiverr and Freelancer, but there are several others that I have been tempted to create profiles on and begin using and just leave this platform for good. I am not there yet, but in the past 3 months I have not gotten a single job from Upwork. Before the boosted proposals I was getting many responses and work was great. 

[#6]

Same story past 3 months no interviews no responses something is going on and we dont know.

[#7]

Although I prefer that boosted proposals system could be removed, I must assume that boosted proposals helped me to get more interviews, but didn´t helped me to be hired more often.

In fact, my boosted proposals was viewed.

I think we must learn how to play the game with boosted proposal. Since freelancers spends money on connects, so I think no freelancer would boosts proposals on jobs that they are not much interested of doing. Money is hard to earn. (At least for most peoples on earth). So nobody spends money for nothing, right? At least wise people don´t do that. So, I think clients would thinks "This freelancer spent more, so he must be more interested than others of doing this job. I will at least read his proposal." - I would think this if I were a client. I just can´t believe someone could be spending a lot of money without hopes to be hired. Maybe just someone much rich would be boosting all his proposals with 10 connects just to do "working play".

Boosting proposals can be throwing your connects on trash if not used wisely. Also boosted proposals isn´t a guarantee or hiring, but it realy rises your chances of being viewed.

So, why I prefer boosted proposals be removed? Because the high number of scammers and not legitimate jobs we are facing this times. Boosted proposals can work if scammers get out of here. A lot of freelancers may be boosting their proposals on jobs that isn´t legitimate, and a lot of clients is receiving a lot of boosted proposals from scammers.

I realy believes that 90% of all problens Upwork is facing now can be solve if they find a way to reduce drasticaly the high number of scammers. My suggestions is:

- Don´t let clients post jobs without verifying their ID. We wants legitimate jobs, not a "maybe possible" job for us. If anyone can post anything without any verification, this is like letting drug dealers sells their "products" inside supermarkets.

[#8]

Since they started the "boosted" proposals I have not gotten a single job on this platform. I have waited, just to see if it was a fluke, 3 months now with my own testing and have not gotten any work on this platform as a result. They have ruined the platform for me and it is very disheartening. After reading some of the comments from clients about how they are now ignoring the boosted proposals in the same way they ignore the "sponsered" results on Google, I am seeing where I may have been shooting myself in the foot the past 3 months by boosting my proposals at all. I will now discontinue wasting my connects to boost any proposals at all and see if that helps.

It is simply a money generating scheme concocted by Upwork and it is disgusting to see a platform that worked extremely well for so long fall apart all because of greed. If they wanted to increase revenue, taking a larger percentage from freelancers or clients would have been the best approach, at least they would have been upfront about their scheme. Instead they tried to surreptitiously trick freelancers into utilizing the boosted proposals by releasing so-called market testing which showed that a handful of freelancers did well on their boosted proposals while ignoring all of the data that stated it was useless and lacked integrity.

I will no longer be boosting any of my proposals from now on. Which will free up a great deal of connects and allow me the opportunity to send out more proposals, which in the end will probably prove to be more effective and have greater results in the long run.

Boosting proposals should be banned.

[#9]

I don't think it needs explaining at all. I'm not boosting.

[#10]

hi, have you already seen the difference in your experience?

[#11]

I don't boost my proposals either, it would make me look like I am desperate. I trust in clients' cleverness to choose candidates according to their actual skills instead.

[#12]

Do you think all businesses that advertise look desperate?

[#13]

Of course not. But it's not the same thing.

[#14]

I absolutely refuse to participate in this idiotic exercise. I do not boost. It's obvious that Upwork doesn't listen to us. I use the platform to get work - and so far, I have enjoyed steady work with a variety of projects. I get the amount of work I want. I rely on my samples and past projects, along with my rating and recommendations from past clients. I don't want a client who would be swayed by someone spending $3 on some extra "tokens" to get noticed.  

[#15]

Anyone else notice that just today 9/21 UW has updated their boosting scheme to show how other boosters are boosting, so that we can outboost the best booster and become booster best, which is better than booster worst. 

I wonder what clients are seeing: lots of unqualified candidates appearing at the top of the list because they boosted (do they know they boosted?).  If so, they will learn to ignore the boost ranking and carry-on as usual (before this boosting thing appeared). 

I tried boosting and not boosting as suggested, and I did not notice any difference: even ran a regression to determine correlation: none existed.  So I decided not to boost any longer - it is a waste for me and a benefit for UW. 

I predict it will be gone by end of 2022 when everyone gets wise to the real reason behind it.

"We generate revenue from both talent and clients, with a majority of our revenue generated from service fees charged to talent for access to our work marketplace, Upwork 10-K Feb 15 ,2022."

[#16]

Wow! I just checked it after reading your message and this is a total disaster for freelancers!

Now anyone can outbid me, and anyone can outbid the one who outbid me! Wonderful! 

Now the question is since the bidding system remains open for 7 days after the job is posted, what is the best time to send boosted proposal should we wait for 2-3 days to get the winning bid info to see how many connects we must burn? 

[#17]

Be the first 5 to 10 to bid on a contract -- clients will soon enough notice that boosters aren't always their best choice, and discern that it is a revenue-generating scheme.   I think this strategy (early bidder) is not useful for low-fee commodity type jobs - where freelancers compete on price.  I have to luxury of being in the US and bid only on US-Only jobs.  I feel for third-worlders on here...but you asked for it by joining !!!

I stopped boosting entirely - have recieved responses. 

[#18]

I mean, this is just getting ridiculous at this point.

[#19]

Brandon,

It is a brilliant connect monetizing strategy if you think of it --- driven by greed, but brilliant, and yes bidding 32 connects for a job on Upwork is excessive, I agree. 

As I said, my clients - and those I interview with - all tell me that they don't see how this makes any difference in percelating the best fit to the top - so I suggest don't boost if thinking of it and stop boosting if you are.

[#20]

I agree, it's brilliant but not great lol

Yeah I only boosted for like a week, hoping by us all providing feedback that Upwork will make a change sooner. 

[#21]

Why do you consider bidding less than $5 for a job that might pay thousands or tens of thousands of dollars in the long run "excessive"? 

[#22]

Doesn't that depend on the job? Most of my clients end up paying thousands or tens of thousands of dollar--hardly seems a big deal to spend less than $5 to get in front of them.

Since my boosted proposals are 2-3x as likely to be opened, I won't be stopping any time soon.

[#23]

Interesting--I think it is just the opposite. I often see freelancers with skills largely interchangeable with many other freelancers talking about the importance of being among the first to bid. I have a specialized skill and often successfully send proposals after a job has been posted for a few days, or even more than a week. 

[#24]

The best time to boost is NEVER, it is gambling on the fact that someone else won't see it, and the connects to get there grow and grow.

[#25]

I despise this new system. I was seeing a 10% submit to interview rate prior to this feature & haven't seen a result from it yet. It is 100% selfish from Upwork in my opinion. It takes away from the most important aspect of our careers = the skillset we've acquired. It does a major disservice to the clients too for that same reason. By promoting a "pay-to-play" world, the client essentially sees who pays the most & not who is the most qualified for the job. Take it away. -10/10 do not recommend. I'm using the rest of my connects & probably going to look elsewhere for projects. Shame as I was working on building an agency on this platform. 

[#26]

As I have said above, I think clients are getting wise to it, those I ask have noticed no correlation between bid-races and freelancer capability/fit and they understand it to be a revenue-generating scheme.  I wouldn't worry much about it as I foresee its eventual demise: when client begin to complain!!!

When you view UW's revenue, you'll note that, for a worldwide-reach, they generate very little revenue annually, and the majority of UW revenue is generated by fees they charge freelancers for access to their network.  I am not disparaging Upwork or their business model: I generate a nice chunk my living here and I mostly like the experience.  However, when you charge 20% of $3/hour projects, you aren't making big bank, esp for a US registered Pubco, so I can imagine the network-monetizing brainstorming session in Santa Clara when some wise MBA suggested bidding wars using connects.