Upwork boosting proposals

Belal

Hi, I‘m collecting my first experiences with Upwork. I like the possibility on sending out proposals for interesting projects but I‘m not sure to what extent the proposal booster is really influencing the client‘s selection process. My impression is that this booster feature is a pure monetization means. What‘s your experience, what do you think?

JJZ

Hello,

In my experience, whether your boosted proposal will work or not really depends on the job poster / client. Sometimes I boost my proposal and still my proposal does not even get read. Other times, it gets read but still does not mean I will get invited for an interview.

However, I think that in the long run, your chances of winning jobs with boosts is better because most job posters are lazy scan all the proposals, let alone read them. They likely only take a look at best matches, they also invite some people and MAYBE take a look at a few other proposals. Most of my proposals in my brief experience as a freelancer do not even get read despite the fact that I have a strong background. It all boils down to how Upwork's algorithm really works.

Belal

JJZ Many thanks for sharing your view and experience on this one. It’s really helpful. Putting myself in the shoes of the client I’d rather shortlist proposals which better fit rather the ones which have been boosted. Not sure, if clients have AI tools in place supporting them in the selection process.

Alexandra

It depends on the client. Lots of crappy jobs and lazy clients on the platform nowadays, so boosting should work. Only businesses or clever individuals will seek out the best match irrespective of money spent on boosting.

AA168

Lately, the proposal booster seemingly is not making a difference. Nothing is making a difference. The site is oversaturated with seemingly fake project postings and low paying projects. I would venture to say that a good portion of the postings are likely fake posts. While there are some postings that are legit, it is hard to tell which ones are legit, and which are fake.

I have been a freelancer on Upworks since 2015. Up until a few months ago, I was working on a project for almost 2 years. Fast foward, that project ended and I started submitted bids for other projects. I have a high job success rating (over 90%) and I have tracked slightly over 3700 hours on Upworks since signing up on the site. In the last 2 months I have bidded on at least 40 projects...and nothing! Out of the projects that I bidded on (some were boosted), maybe 3 posters viewed the proposal. Boosting my bids, I went through nearly 800 connects that I had accumulated, in a rather short period of time. I've even to had to purchase more connects, which I never had to do in the past because I always had so many of them stacked up. Up until recently, I've never had such a hard time securing projects. I wrote all of this to say that boosting your bid at this time, may be a waste of connects because it is hard to tell which projects are fake and which ones are real. Personally, I think that some of the fake posts are placed by the site in order to get freelancers to bid on them and boost the bid. Of course, when the freelancer runs out of connects, he or she has to buy more connects. Who benefits when the freelancer has to purchase more connects...the site does? Do you see where I am going with this? Unfortunately, Upworks has taken a deep nose dive and I am not sure if it will ever be the same as it was when I first started on the site.

Belal

Thanks for sharing your experience. This is one of the reasons I stopped spending connects for bidding.

AA168

Belal You are very welcome!

Lisa B.

Profile boosting used to work--It would bring me DMs and job offers almost daily.

I lived off invites for almost 10 years, and then they stopped when Upwork became a casino. So I hate going into the Job Feed.

But then something suddenly changed and profile boosting no longer worked.

I wrote Support, and I kept getting different reasons for why profile boosting stopped working. One person admitted that they've changed how they're showing boosted profiles and now display them "outside of Upwork." And that was the exact day that I noticed the change. I thought that might be a privacy violation, so I checked the TOS, and they're allowed to do that.

But then the next Support person denied what the last person said, and instead sent me a word salad with BS about improving my profile views. Cut-and-pasted from the manual, no doubt.

Whatever they did, boosting profiles no longer brings in any ROI.

Of course, they had to mess with and ruin the last remaining tool that (sort of) works.

AA168

Hello Lisa,

Up until a few months ago, I did well on Upwork. I had consistent work for 10 years and barely had to use my connects. I was working on a project for almost 2 years that recently ended. Only then did I start to realize that the dynamics of the site has changed drastically. I have an over 90% job success rating, I am a top rated plus, I have good reviews, and for the last 2.5 months, I have submitted well over 40 proposals and I have not landed anything. Only a few of those 40+ proposals were viewed. I went through the nearly 800 connects that I had stored up rather quickly boosting bids on...seemingly "bad" projects. I have found that the site is very saturated...not only with freelancers, but spam projects as well. I am now gun shy about bidding on projects because I don't know which are real and which are fake. I remain hopeful that Upwork will start to work for me again, however, that hope is fading quickly.