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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
richard_wein
Community Member

For me the worst part of this new system is that the number of connects required to submit a proposal is reduced to just 1. And this is after Upwork started giving away free connects again about a year ago. So this is bound to lead to more poor quality proposals,  the very problem that Upwork keeps saying it's trying to remedy! It will now be MORE difficult for clients to find the best proposal (the most suitable freelancer for the job),  unless that proposal has been boosted into the top three slots.

 

I guess Upwork's thinking is that there will be some correlation between a proposal's suitability and it's chance of appearing in the boosted slots, since a freelancer submitting a more suitable proposal will be willing to pay more connects. But this is likely to be a weak correlation, and there's a good chance that the most suitable proposal will miss the booster slots and end up buried in an even bigger pile of less suitable proposals. 

 

This is effectively an admission by Upwork that its relevancy algorithm is not working well enough, since there would be no point in having this new system if the most relevant proposals were already being sorted to the top of the list. 

spunner
Community Member

I completely agree with your submission on this feature. While upwork is interested in making more money, it should find a way to do it.

grimesr
Community Member

I am curious.

 

What does the client see with a boosted proposal in their list?

 

What has the client been told about this concept?

 

Does the client really know that what they see at the top of the list might only be there because someone paid more to get it there and it may not actually from a more qualified freelancer?

 

At least you can do (other than nuking the whole idea) is to warn clients about how freelancers can effect what they have to choose from.

roberty1y
Community Member

Marcelo C said:

 

If the goal is to raise money, they could simply increase the cost of the connections and voila. 

 

Or they could stop refunding connects. As I've said elsewhere, it must have been easy for dishonest freelancers to game the refund system. They could draft a proposal that was almost sure to elicit a response - say they're especially qualified for the job in question and/or they'll charge a very low rate. Then there were the outright scams - people posting jobs and "inteviewing" people by the hundred.

mar_work
Community Member

I share the opinion, Robert, and almost all the doubts that were raised about this initiative. I reaffirm what I think. Although I don't have much experience, I suspect this option will complicate the choice of a freelancer for clients. How can this be positive or helpful to them? It is an absurd reasoning. Finding a suitable worker among 20 proposals must be exhausting by now. What will customers experience when they see 50 or maybe more proposals? Only one connection per project is clearly a bad idea. If the goal of the platform was always to bring together the best clients with the best freelancers, this seems to contradict that motto or goal. Also, they could have implemented this same system of "impulses" (although I don't like to "bet" when I think of a job) with the current values ​​of connections. I still believe that, although it is difficult to stand out and have a good freelance career, the best way to be noticed and have visibility is to have a good portfolio, good reviews and make personalized proposals. Why would anyone think that the worker with the highest paid connections is precisely the most suitable worker? It's a bit illogical. We are all "interested" in the projects in which we participate. Interest must be taken for granted.
Unless, as I said before, the objective of this initiative is to generate "traffic" on the platform and that all projects end with a minimum of 50 proposals.

webdev7847
Community Member

Valeria K 

I am waiting to hear from you. I see that this new rule is no longer there at the jobs. I searched many jobs and i can't find any job where this rules exist. Have you cancelled it ? If so then it will be a big appointment. This new rule is very good rules for new upwork users and fair also.  users have there own authority if they want to use less connects for any bidding or more . Thanks 

AveryO
Community Manager

Hi Smita, 


As Andrea has confirmed in an earlier reply here, and as Valeria has noted here, I can confirm this test is still running, and the option is available only for select jobs during testing.

yacinelhichri
Community Member

I saw this yesterday I think and then it disappeared. How can I bring it back? I am fed up with paying 6 Connects each time. 

2a05aa63
Community Member

Yacine H wrote:

I saw this yesterday I think and then it disappeared. How can I bring it back? I am fed up with paying 6 Connects each time. 


Only few jobs are getting this while it's in beta. It will be all once it's out.

kaplar
Community Member

Hi! Last night I got notification that upwork is changing the way we use connects, down to 1 for each job and then we can manually boost our proposal by spending few more. Right after that I applied to a job that had this new description. This morning I see that everything is back to normal with usually needed 4-6 connects for each job. 

Did I miss anything? Are these changes only to specific jobs? 

Did you remove this feature or took it down for maintenance or something? 


I really welcomed this idea of using connects. Check attachment