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How does the matching algorithm work ?

Discover how you can maximize your chances of receiving more qualitative opportunities.

Melania RANAIVOELISON avatar
Written by Melania RANAIVOELISON
Updated over 3 years ago

Our matching algorithm selects, ranks and learns based on the data we collect. You can improve your agency’s performance by providing more information.

This article focuses on our Lead Generation module. For more information about our directories you can refer to Sortlist Methodology for Ranking Agencies on our Directories

We select agencies based on their prospecting markets (services x locations)

By listing services and matching areas you are defining the markets in which you’d like to be found.

Those are two distinct dimensions so they multiply. For example, if you have added London and Amsterdam for SEO and UX you’ll have 4 markets:

  1. London-SEO

  2. London-UX

  3. Amsterdam-SEO

  4. Amsterdam-UX.

Making the right market choice can seem hard but does not have to be:

  • Assess where you’re most likely to outperform the competition

  • Get in touch with your Account Manager who’ll be able to help you identify the most active markets.

You can also explore our insights to analyze the market trends

Based on this, for a given project, we’ll look for the agencies active in its market and we’ll start ranking them.

We rank the agencies based on the quality of their profile and that of the fit with the project

Great profiles have up to 6 times more opportunities every month.

To help you understand what is a great profile we have established the following guidelines:

Must have

Detailed services

Describe your services for clients, not for keyword stuffing. Give them a snappy description and list 10-20 of the most relevant skills (ex: “Shopify” skill for the service “e-commerce”).

Relevant works

Clients expect to work with agencies that have a relevant track record. We recommend that you list 6+ recent (< 2 year) works for each of your active services. Note that you can link the same work to many services - for example UX & E-Commerce - if you worked on both aspects.

Having works in your target industries will also help.

Client reviews

85%+ of B2B buyers will now spend time looking for reviews before engaging with an agency. This is why having high-profile recent reviews for most of your services will be key.

We know that asking for reviews can feel like you’re annoying your past clients. This is why we built some tools to help you ask for them but also to enter reviews they’ve already written (for your website, your Google account, etc,.) on their behalf ! All they will have to do is to confirm.

Discover in this article how you can use both methods.

Should have

Service ordering

Order your services from most important (top) to less important (bottom). We want to put forward agencies that are specialized in a given domain.

Local office

You will have more chances to receive projects where you have a physical office. Some clients are open to work anywhere but we’ve seen - for cultural, legal, and timezone reasons - that most still prefer to work with people they can meet.

On this topic, don’t add fake offices, we’ll penalize you and the algorithm will also recognize if clients tend not to engage with you because of it.

You’re more likely to be selected for opportunities in your country, even more in your city.

Visual

Having great visuals for your logo, cover and team picture will make your profile more engaging.

Extra

Budget

The budget preferences are exactly that: preferences. It’s not a hard filter because we can’t guarantee the presence or the validity of the indicated budget.

By setting your budget preferences you’re making a trade-off:

  • If you set your minimum budget at 1000€ it means that you will probably receive more opportunities.

  • However, by doing so, and because the algorithm tends to favor agencies receiving less opportunities, you’ll be less likely to receive the higher budget opportunities.

We know it can be hard to assess whether you’ve done enough and if your profile compares well with those of the competition.

This is why we’ve introduced the Profile Quality Index as a measure of your overall profile quality. You’ll find some things that are not listed above but those should have little to no impact on the opportunities you receive.

We improve our algorithm thanks to your feedback

The last way you can improve your performance is by giving us feedback.

This will help us improve our matching.

Therefore we encourage you to:

  • Decline opportunities you directly see are not a good fit (actively decline it, don’t just leave it)

  • Archive opportunities you could not close and give us a reason

This is it, everything you need to know to better perform on our Lead Generation module.

Get in touch with us if you feel you have any questions

Changelog - Recent changes on the algorithm

  • [2021-03] Service order: Specialists first - The order in which you rank your services now has an impact on your likelihood of receiving opportunities. Prioritize (put on top) the services you want to focus on.

  • [2020-12] Skills: Precision - the skills you attach to your services and work now have more importance in our matching.

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