Tracking your proposal win rate and what to change
If you do not measure it, you cannot improve it. A simple way to count proposals, replies and wins, and how to read the numbers.
Whether you write every proposal by hand or have an agent draft them, the numbers tell you what is working. You do not need a spreadsheet full of formulas; three counts are enough to show where to focus.
The three counts
- Proposals sent. How many you submitted.
- Replies. How many clients answered, even if the answer was no.
- Hires. How many became contracts.
Reading them
- Few replies from many proposals usually means the first lines, the match or the timing needs work.
- Plenty of replies but few hires points to the conversation, the price or the fit.
- Hires but low reviews points to the kind of jobs you are accepting, not the proposals.
Break it down by keyword
The most useful split is by the search term that found each job. Some keywords bring noise and some bring replies. Drop the first kind and add variations of the second. See choosing keywords that find jobs.
Change one thing at a time
If you rewrite your opening lines, change your bid and add a new keyword in the same week, you will not know which one helped. Make one change, wait for a few dozen proposals, then look again.
Be patient with small samples
A handful of proposals proves very little. The first job can take many proposals to land, as freelancers in the Upwork Community often note, so judge changes over weeks, not days.