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Interview with Ellen Pack,VP Marketing at Elance, regarding changes to their Add-On Connect service

WhichLance: What prompted the changes that Elance is making to add-on connects? And how will these changes affect start-up freelancers? An initial reading suggests it could make life more difficult for them.

Ellen: Actually, the effect of the changes should make the environment better for start-up freelancers.  We identified two primary drivers for this update:

1) Broader distribution of opportunities to more quality providers, and

2) Improved targeting and quality of proposals.

Prior to this change, any provider able to afford the Connects could spam the marketplace with proposals.   Their spam proposals were drowning out more legitimate proposals from new and veteran providers who took time to target leads who are great matches with high quality proposals.

WhichLance: What percentage of providers were going over Elance's Connect limits?

Ellen: A very small minority of providers ever went above our established Connect limits.  But this minority went over the limits regularly and substantially.  These changes should benefit the majority of providers, and give them an improved situation with a greater variety of opportunities and higher quality proposals,

We expect the result to be better fill rates for everyone.

WhichLance: How do Connects work?

Ellen: Connects are used at the time of proposal submission.  They basically work like ads that you display to  highly targeted leads.  They are also comparable to buying click-through Google adwords.

WhichLance: When providers use their credits on a job which is then cancelled or expires without being awarded, will they get their credits refunded? Or is losing those credits a risk they just have to take?

Ellen: There is no guarantee that the advertisement will actually convert the lead in to a client.  But of course if a job posting is cancelled prior to award, all of the freelancer's Connects are returned.

Thanks to Ellen for taking part in this interview to help demystify the Elance Connects system and recent changes to it for our readers.