Welcome to "Fiverr 3.0"!

[mateusbl]

I still get the occasional request in a message to make an app, when I only offer promo videos for apps.

But never orders.

Tweaking my tags made less and less people message me about what I don’t offer.

Eventually I hope to completely eliminate them.

Yes this is the best example you do promo video… is clearly that the user don’t read your title or your description before contact you…

For me is the same like you… i don’t receive orders but receive wrong messages in some ocasions. I’ll start to track how often this happen to see what can be done about. Thanks for the advice.

[frank_d]

On 3/20/2021 at 4:58 PM, merohan said:

One of my assumptions is that Sellers offering higher ticket gigs in the category and with a good track record are going to get boosted. What’s your opinion on this?

Thank you for replying.

Well it makes sense for the algorithm to favor good performers in general.

One thing my article didn’t cover is pricing.

Pricing does play a role in your gig’s overall performance.

So an expensive gig that never converts is definitely performing worse than an average priced gig that sells.

And a lower priced gig that sells a lot, may be weighted less than said average priced gig.

In most cases Pro gigs are usually the highest priced gigs and while they don’t get boosted over regular gigs they are served more to people who the algo thinks have a better chance of spending.

[uk1000]

On 3/20/2021 at 4:59 PM, frank_d said:

On the flip side, Fiverr’s algorithm learns all the time, so it will be getting more efficient.

It will be taking new current data into account all the time, though might the training of the machine learning models be more of a manual thing not a continuous, automatic daily thing? eg. if they were going to try adding a set of new variables to the model to see if that helped and there were a lot in total (eg. >100) and lots of data to train with, maybe it would take a long time to run to find the best predictors. Maybe it might be run on a system that isn’t live so it doesn’t slow the live system down.

So maybe they only update the machine learning models manually every so often like every week or month, but the data they use is more frequent.

These give some idea about their machine learning stuff:

Medium – 22 Sep 19 Feature Selection: Beyond feature importance? Reading time: 5 min read

Medium – 23 Nov 20 Personalizing Fiverr: From Machine Learning to User Experience Reading time: 6 min read

[frank_d]

On 3/20/2021 at 5:01 PM, uk1000 said:

It will be taking new current data into account all the time, though might the training of the machine learning models be more of a manual thing not a continuous, automatic daily thing? eg. if they were going to try adding a set of new variables to the model to see if that helped and there were a lot in total (eg. >100) and lots of data to train with, maybe it would take a long time to run to find the best predictors. Maybe it might be run on a system that isn’t live so it doesn’t slow the live system down.

So maybe they only update the machine learning models manually every so often like every week or month, but the data they use is more frequent.

These give some idea about their machine learning stuff:

Medium – 22 Sep 19 Feature Selection: Beyond feature importance? Reading time: 5 min read

Medium – 23 Nov 20 Personalizing Fiverr: From Machine Learning to User Experience Reading time: 6 min read

This is definitely more than I can chew.

What I can understand and say is this:

The algorithm is based on machine learning, part of it at least.

Then there are also manual updates like new metrics, changes in weight, new meta data etc.

It’s a lot more complicated than what we all think.

[merohan]

On 3/20/2021 at 5:14 PM, frank_d said:

So an expensive gig that never converts is definitely performing worse than an average priced gig that sells.

And a lower priced gig that sells a lot, may be weighted less than said average priced gig.

That really makes sense. Algos optimizing to make as much revenue for the platform.

I must say a lot goes behind the curtains. Filled a survey a few days back about the Offsite promotion of gigs, it will definitely be going to boost the platform and sellers. Considering the offsite ads going niche down the services will help surely help in conversion in the long run.

Let’s see when they are going to roll out this.

[frank_d]

On 3/20/2021 at 5:16 PM, merohan said:

I must say a lot goes behind the curtains. Filled a survey a few days back about the Offsite promotion of gigs, it will definitely be going to boost the platform and sellers.

I got that survey too!

I forgot to mention promoted gigs. They do play a part in this, but it’s super complicated.

[merohan]

On 3/20/2021 at 5:24 PM, frank_d said:

I forgot to mention promoted gigs. They do play a part in this, but it’s super complicated.

Would love to hear your take on that.

Onsite promoted gigs seems to be a little off to me. Don’t know how but they won’t boost much even after getting orders from regulars.

Giving a seller a bit more control and detailed dashboard would have helped I guess.

[miiila]

I still get the occasional request in a message to make an app, when I only offer promo videos for apps.

But never orders.

Tweaking my tags made less and less people message me about what I don’t offer.

Eventually I hope to completely eliminate them.

I doubt that it will be possible to completely eliminate people messaging about something one doesn’t offer. If we take the example of someone looking for a php script messaging a script writer - the same person who’d not read a gig title, to not even mention the description, would perhaps also be the person who only types in “script” as they only think about whatever affects them personally, and they don’t even consider, or know, that something like a script writer exists. And if you have the “bad luck” that your gig shows up high for that general single search word “script”, you have them in your inbox.

I got a request to make an app once too, at first, I was really surprised, but then I remembered that the word app actually is in one of my gig descriptions, then I remembered how search sometimes works, and also what kind of people I’ve seen use Fiverr over the years, and the surprise evaporated.

Optimizing everything certainly reduces the chances of people straying into one’s gig and inbox who don’t have any business being there, but optimizing only goes so far. I’d also say that some categories, especially the more technical ones, probably suffer more from that than others.

Another reason for those strays that I know from my category is what other people do, which you don’t have any influence over - other people who offer what you offer, and offer also the thing you don’t offer, and your gig is among those people’s gigs, so they might ask you for what those people offer even if you don’t.

To express it more visually (and probably a bit fulsomely, or maybe not), if 90% of sellers in your category offer language A<>B, 70% offer several language pairs, and 50% offer “any language”, and you are one of 10% who only offers language A->B, it doesn’t matter how well you optimize, eventually there will be someone who’ll ask (or even order) a language, or a direction that you don’t offer.

But apart from wasted time, it shouldn’t be a big issue, everyone should occasionally get one of those stray buyers, so they count against one’s conversion, but others get them too, so the effect should be negligible, in the bigger picture over time.

That is, if you have optimized enough to not get a disproportionate amount of them through avoidable things like bad/mistakable wording, of course.

I do get them seldom enough to not really think about it. Now, if I could eliminate those people in my inbox who tell me they can translate any language, that would be something worth optimizing for, but I fear that’s an optimizing that Fiverr would have to do 😉

---

[frank_d]

On 3/20/2021 at 5:30 PM, miiila said:

I doubt that it will be possible to completely eliminate people messaging about something one doesn’t offer. If we take the example of someone looking for a php script messaging a script writer - the same person who’d not read a gig title, to not even mention the description, would perhaps also be the person who only types in “script” as they only think about whatever affects them personally, and they don’t even consider, or know, that something like a script writer exists. And if you have the “bad luck” that your gig shows up high for that general single search word “script”, you have them in your inbox.

I got a request to make an app once too, at first, I was really surprised, but then I remembered that the word app actually is in one of my gig descriptions, then I remembered how search sometimes works, and also what kind of people I’ve seen use Fiverr over the years, and the surprise evaporated.

Optimizing everything certainly reduces the chances of people straying into one’s gig and inbox who don’t have any business being there, but optimizing only goes so far. I’d also say that some categories, especially the more technical ones, probably suffer more from that than others.

Another reason for those strays that I know from my category is what other people do, which you don’t have any influence over - other people who offer what you offer, and offer also the thing you don’t offer, and your gig is among those people’s gigs, so they might ask you for what those people offer even if you don’t.

To express it more visually (and probably a bit fulsomely, or maybe not), if 90% of sellers in your category offer language A<>B, 70% offer several language pairs, and 50% offer “any language”, and you are one of 10% who only offers language A->B, it doesn’t matter how well you optimize, eventually there will be someone who’ll ask (or even order) a language, or a direction that you don’t offer.

But apart from wasted time, it shouldn’t be a big issue, everyone should occasionally get one of those stray buyers, so they count against one’s conversion, but others get them too, so the effect should be negligible, in the bigger picture over time.

That is, if you have optimized enough to not get a disproportionate amount of them through avoidable things like bad/mistakable wording, of course.

I do get them seldom enough to not really think about it. Now, if I could eliminate those people in my inbox who tell me they can translate any language, that would be something worth optimizing for, but I fear that’s an optimizing that Fiverr would have to do

Like you said, optimizing will help reduce stray messages.

They really don’t do any harm.

What you need to fight is people ordering your gig and asking for something they thought you offered.

That will actually tank your performance.

[miiila]

Like you said, optimizing will help reduce stray messages.

They really don’t do any harm.

What you need to fight is people ordering your gig and asking for something they thought you offered.

That will actually tank your performance.

Ah, I suppose, yes. I only had that happen once in all the time, that might confirm my impression that it would depend a lot on the category, or is due to a mix of optimizing and good luck perhaps. Or just good luck, who knows. The person saw the error of their ways right after ordering, I assume through my requirement page, and it happened “live”, so to speak, so at least it could be sorted quickly. Support canceled it, and I don’t think it did much. If you get that often, of course, it surely will have an effect, and also, it’s simply annoying, of course.

---

Actually, why I came back to the thread though was to add something else that I forgot to post above. I’m convinced that one of the things Fiverr 3.0 loves is if sellers specialize. That would be the first thing I’d recommend struggling sellers. It ties in with your points of relevancy and matching, obviously, but I think it’s worth spelling it out.

[anniejenkinson]

This has been one h*ll of a good read. Well, now I think you nailed it. I see my issues. Damn. I just began gig revising… have stopped all work to revamp certain elements. Massive help, thank you!

As you say, it may not all be right but it’s certainly the most likely scenario based on a few things I have also been told by managers lately…

[wp_kid]

Sorry guys I had to remove some of my comments and relevant replies. Apologies.

[frank_d]

It has come to my attention that forum members who are part of the seller plus program confirm that they have heard some of the stuff I mention from their success manager.

I need to clarify that what I shared is NOT knowledge I got from either the program, or the webinar.

Any overlap is purely coincidental, I assure you.

This post has been in the making since late January.

I am not breaking ToS, nor am I sharing information I am not supposed to.

I felt like the disclaimer I made on the OP would be enough, but it’s apparently not.

To forum members that are part of the seller plus program: please don’t share what your SM has told you, as it is breaking the program’s ToS.

[miiila]

Regarding keywords in title and tags, we all read the "Fiverr wants the be the [big platform for physical goodies that we all know and love] of freelancing, or so I imagine, so one could speculate that what happens on that platform from a seller perspective might be interesting for those who sell on this platform too.

I often get customers with keyword-stuffed titles and bullet points for their listings on that platform of physical stuff, or let’s call the listings gigs, since we’re more familiar with cool wording on this platform (it even gets cooler with full-blown concerts instead of gigs on the forum when people use Google Translate to communicate), and, actually, hey, let’s call them bullet points tags, just for fun.

That platform itself doesn’t only officially tell people it’s not helping to repeat keywords but even that they should not repeat them.

(Many people still do keyword stuffing, usually because of one or more of the following reasons: They don’t read, they generally do read (maybe even a lot) but read up on the relevant topic five years ago and are oblivious to the fact that things change sometimes, they read but think they know better, they read too much and believe too much of what they read, and a very tiny minority may have some insider knowledge/privileges and know exactly what, why and how they are doing or not doing something.)

---

Then again … let me close with a quote from Fiverr from the Help pages, “Seo tricks for gig titles”:

Quote

Keywords

Using a consistent keyword in your Gig title, description and tags will help improve your search ranking on Fiverr. Additionally, creating a username with a phrase or word related to your area of expertise will reinforce your Gig to a potential buyer. Use the repetition of keywords to your advantage.

“A consistent keyword”, “repetition of keywords”, that does clash a bit, right, so maybe the two platforms aren’t that comparable, after all, or something might not yet have been updated, it does happen, or there may be more than one truth, that also does happen. Ultimately, we all need to pick our poison.

---

All in all, I might like this bit best, and it’s easy to remember, too, almost like a Master Yoda quote, so I’ll use that as my major take-away from this thread:

On 3/20/2021 at 6:45 PM, frank_d said:

There is no “ranking”.

[benedictrm]

Thanks Frank

Makes a lot of sense.

🙂

[vickiespencer]

Thanks Frank. I learned some more things to add to my 💼 on Fiverr.

[cubittaudio]

Fantastic article @frank_d , thanks for taking the time to put it together.

Here’s my recent experience, that for me 100% validates what you’re saying;

About a year ago, we branched out from Voice Over, and started offering Screen Capture videos. Completed maybe 60 over the year, and made some good money out of them. 100% 5-star reviews, happy customers etc.

But, they were a NIGHTMARE to convert. I think if I converted 5% of enquiries, that would be me being generous. Buyers would message about whiteboard videos, animated videos, stock footage videos, spokesperson videos, “can you make me a video just like this huge budget Slack video” etc. Or they’d want the moon on a stick, with a budget of $50. Revisions were ALWAYS needed, projects took forever to turn around, and cancellation rates were high compared with our VO gigs.

On the surface, nothing was wrong - but reading this, I suspect everything was wrong.

In our first call with our Success Manager, we talked about this - and I came to the conclusion that we’d lost our focus, because ALL of our gigs were suffering, and had been for a while. A few weeks back, I made the decision to pause the video gigs (temporarily, but most likely permanently), and focus only on Voice Overs again.

And our VO gigs have shot off like a rocket ever since!

This could only be temporary, it could even be coincidental, but it feels like our voice over gigs are on steroids at the moment, and I think it’s because Fiverr 3.0 knows that when it comes to VO, we’ll give Fiverr what they want; lots of customers who are happy to spend their money. Less friction, more sales.

I’ll be implementing some of the things you’ve suggested here re gig descriptions and keywords, and let’s see where this goes!

[frank_d]

Fantastic article @frank_d , thanks for taking the time to put it together.

Here’s my recent experience, that for me 100% validates what you’re saying;

About a year ago, we branched out from Voice Over, and started offering Screen Capture videos. Completed maybe 60 over the year, and made some good money out of them. 100% 5-star reviews, happy customers etc.

But, they were a NIGHTMARE to convert. I think if I converted 5% of enquiries, that would be me being generous. Buyers would message about whiteboard videos, animated videos, stock footage videos, spokesperson videos, “can you make me a video just like this huge budget Slack video” etc. Or they’d want the moon on a stick, with a budget of $50. Revisions were ALWAYS needed, projects took forever to turn around, and cancellation rates were high compared with our VO gigs.

On the surface, nothing was wrong - but reading this, I suspect everything was wrong.

In our first call with our Success Manager, we talked about this - and I came to the conclusion that we’d lost our focus, because ALL of our gigs were suffering, and had been for a while. A few weeks back, I made the decision to pause the video gigs (temporarily, but most likely permanently), and focus only on Voice Overs again.

And our VO gigs have shot off like a rocket ever since!

This could only be temporary, it could even be coincidental, but it feels like our voice over gigs are on steroids at the moment, and I think it’s because Fiverr 3.0 knows that when it comes to VO, we’ll give Fiverr what they want; lots of customers who are happy to spend their money. Less friction, more sales.

I’ll be implementing some of the things you’ve suggested here re gig descriptions and keywords, and let’s see where this goes!

Thank you @cubittaudio for sharing your story!

I feel that you made the right call pausing your video related gigs for a while.

When in doubt, zoom out.

Take a step back and reassess.

In your case it seems like you got your answer since your VO gig got back to normal after pausing your video gigs.

It does make sense for Fiverr to track everything and favor gigs that have minimal friction.

To that end let me share my POV:

Every time I have multiple Pro gig orders, it gets dead quiet until I deliver everything.

When I have 8-10 regular gigs and 2-3 of them are stuck in “modification” status, same thing.

If I have 3-5 regular gigs going on, then I get tons of enquiries as per usual.

So Fiverr actually knows I have reached my capacity even before I do, and stops serving my gigs.

(Hence everyone who still believes gig rotation is a thing)

[eoinfinnegan]

So I can’t really comment on the last few months but I definitely saw a number of these things popping up at times even 9-12 months ago.

There was likely some testing going on over a longer period which made all our analysis seem somewhat muddled or right for some but not for others. Many of the things that you mention are things I remember talking about even two years ago but that was more in the sense of “it would be a good idea if Fiverr’s algorithms thought like this…”
Whether with Google or Fiverr, it’s always a good idea to think about what they are trying to achieve and how that could come about. It’s how to get ahead of the competitors because when you are right you can be sure these big companies will get to their goal sooner rather than later.

Great write up Frank and happy birthday, is it a big one?

[frank_d]

So I can’t really comment on the last few months but I definitely saw a number of these things popping up at times even 9-12 months ago.

There was likely some testing going on over a longer period which made all our analysis seem somewhat muddled or right for some but not for others. Many of the things that you mention are things I remember talking about even two years ago but that was more in the sense of “it would be a good idea if Fiverr’s algorithms thought like this…”

Whether with Google or Fiverr, it’s always a good idea to think about what they are trying to achieve and how that could come about. It’s how to get ahead of the competitors because when you are right you can be sure these big companies will get to their goal sooner rather than later.

Great write up Frank and happy birthday, is it a big one?

Thank you @eoinfinnegan !

I can definitely be off on the actual timeline of the update roll out, or it could also started affecting me later than others.

As for the bday, it is a big one: the big 4-0.

[teramangala]

Sorry guys I had to remove some of my comments and relevant replies. Apologies.

It’s okay we had time to read, thank you 😁

[moditha_damindu]

I am agreeing with you for every word you said in above 😇 the thing that I realized from you is that experience beats myths just like precision beats power.

Everything you mentioned above is from your experience and I have experience the same things that you have mentioned above.

Happy birthday 🎂

[stormkevin]

Hi there Frank.

Thank you SO much for sharing this.
My name is Kevin Storm. In the last months I had been stupendously busy drawing 16+ hours a day with my 2 gigs “I’ll draw anything” and “I’ll create NFT Cryproart”.

The app and site have been extremely, worryinly buggy for me with messages remaining unread (an issue dating back as far as 2016 as i can tell in forums), people not finding their deliveries (MANY autocompleted deliveries, even after I send many messages to reach customers) and much more. I can be having several conversations with people and they are all happy to go ahead and order and BOOM, all conversations stop simultaneously and customers never respond anymore.

In february I used the “promote your gig” feature. Many things happened;

-Both my gigs (over 300 5 star orders and rave reviews) dropped literally to the last spot on the last page.

• I suddenly did not appear at all and got zero customers, gig unpromotable. I found out this was because I used the words “many people leave me with 5 star review” in my FAQ section and without notification, Fiverr had completely blacklisted and removed my gig. I didnt know that was not allowed.
  I fixed the issue, but I never got back to where I was.

Oh and then I suddenly got an email with a rejection for Fiverr Pro that I never applied for.
No answer on that either. Bugs.

Fiverr is my only source of income, I am now jobless, except for the odd returning customer. I can’t sleep over this and I’ve literally been emailing customer support and twitter DAILY for over a month.

I sent close to 15 videos of the many issues and every day I get a “this has been forwarded to the relevant team” message. Until I asked if i could open a new account. I immediately got a warning that should I try that, I’d get them both banned.

We did a test here at home. My girlfriend ordered a drawing and we went through everything. As she accepted the delivery, her app crashed, and remained unusable on a locked screen for over an hour (didnt check if it works now). Closing the app, or phone didn’t bring the app back.

This worries me so much as perhaps people now can’t review the gig at all, or maybe just filled out 1 five star, app crashes and the other two remain at zero? I have no idea what is going on but I am crying here. I work harder than anyone out there and now am struggling to get even a single customer.

Another thing (sorry, last one) is that for my NFT gig, I was one of the first. The hype surrounding it is immesne and I was on top of the game, making great money. Someone ordered 4 drawings from me, and then started using MY drawings to list 4 gigs of his/her own that are now ranked way above me.
Perhaps they even left me with zero stars in the private “tell us in private what you thought of…” review people always get, who knows.

I would greatly greatly appreciate any help to get back to a basic income. If you can perhaps help me reach a human being on the customer support side or have a look at my keywords and metrics, I’d be extremely grateful. I’ll draw anything you want as a thank you 🙂 (This goes for anyone out there with the golden tip!) If you have a drawing gig and can’t finish your orders as you’re too busy, send them my way.

Fiverr was my lifeline, I’m very stressed about all this and can only hope they don’t see me as “that annoying seller who keeps complaining every day”.

Thank you for the explanation, I felt a slight relief and have a little hope now.

Kevin

[chronos_1]

On 3/21/2021 at 1:10 AM, frank_d said:

Not leaving order updates unanswered for too long (the “buyer has posted an update for X amount of hours” notification)

In this case , there is a bug in fiverr system . It happens when buyer asks something in order page and completes the order before you can respond to it . Then this thing keeps on increasing and there is nothing you can do about it

On 3/21/2021 at 1:26 AM, stormkevin said:

Hi there Frank.

Thank you SO much for sharing this.

My name is Kevin Storm. In the last months I had been stupendously busy drawing 16+ hours a day with my 2 gigs “I’ll draw anything” and “I’ll create NFT Cryproart”.

The app and site have been extremely, worryinly buggy for me with messages remaining unread (an issue dating back as far as 2016 as i can tell in forums), people not finding their deliveries (MANY autocompleted deliveries, even after I send many messages to reach customers) and much more. I can be having several conversations with people and they are all happy to go ahead and order and BOOM, all conversations stop simultaneously and customers never respond anymore.

In february I used the “promote your gig” feature. Many things happened;

-Both my gigs (over 300 5 star orders and rave reviews) dropped literally to the last spot on the last page.

• I suddenly did not appear at all and got zero customers, gig unpromotable. I found out this was because I used the words “many people leave me with 5 star review” in my FAQ section and without notification, Fiverr had completely blacklisted and removed my gig. I didnt know that was not allowed.

  I fixed the issue, but I never got back to where I was.

Oh and then I suddenly got an email with a rejection for Fiverr Pro that I never applied for.

No answer on that either. Bugs.

Fiverr is my only source of income, I am now jobless, except for the odd returning customer. I can’t sleep over this and I’ve literally been emailing customer support and twitter DAILY for over a month.

I sent close to 15 videos of the many issues and every day I get a “this has been forwarded to the relevant team” message. Until I asked if i could open a new account. I immediately got a warning that should I try that, I’d get them both banned.

We did a test here at home. My girlfriend ordered a drawing and we went through everything. As she accepted the delivery, her app crashed, and remained unusable on a locked screen for over an hour (didnt check if it works now). Closing the app, or phone didn’t bring the app back.

This worries me so much as perhaps people now can’t review the gig at all, or maybe just filled out 1 five star, app crashes and the other two remain at zero? I have no idea what is going on but I am crying here. I work harder than anyone out there and now am struggling to get even a single customer.

Another thing (sorry, last one) is that for my NFT gig, I was one of the first. The hype surrounding it is immesne and I was on top of the game, making great money. Someone ordered 4 drawings from me, and then started using MY drawings to list 4 gigs of his/her own that are now ranked way above me.

Perhaps they even left me with zero stars in the private “tell us in private what you thought of…” review people always get, who knows.

I would greatly greatly appreciate any help to get back to a basic income. If you can perhaps help me reach a human being on the customer support side or have a look at my keywords and metrics, I’d be extremely grateful. I’ll draw anything you want as a thank you 🙂 (This goes for anyone out there with the golden tip!) If you have a drawing gig and can’t finish your orders as you’re too busy, send them my way.

Fiverr was my lifeline, I’m very stressed about all this and can only hope they don’t see me as “that annoying seller who keeps complaining every day”.

Thank you for the explanation, I felt a slight relief and have a little hope now.

Kevin

This is true and there are tons of bugs on fiverr currently . Customer support gives same answer over and over again without actually checking it or giving a fix .

[stormkevin]

This is true and there are tons of bugs on fiverr currently . Customer support gives same answer over and over again without actually checking it or giving a fix .

I’m really happy to hear i am not alone. I completely lost my income.

If anyone contacts fiverr CS, please link them to this thread!