Promotion on Wildberries rests on five things: delivery time, promos, sales, conversion and advertising. WB publishes the weights itself in the "Search ranking and product placement" guide: delivery zone and delivery time give 30–40% of search placement, participation in promos 7–35%, sales in rubles 10–25%, conversion 5–20%. Card content weighs up to 1%. Advertising in the WB Продвижение cabinet lifts a product beyond these factors, and combined with a promo it gives an extra boost.
"Wildberries promotion" gets about 1,500 searches a month, and almost every breakdown in search results lists the same advice. We checked it against real search results. On 27 September 2026 we captured the first 300 search positions on WB for 40 everyday queries, from thermo mugs to vacuum cleaners, in five cities: Moscow, St Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Krasnodar and Yekaterinburg. That's 59,400 positions in total. The order of products matches what a customer sees on the site without logging in: we checked the first 30 positions of one query against the storefront.
What affects product promotion on Wildberries: WB's factor weights
Wildberries doesn't hide how it sorts search results. The instructions list ten factors and the range of influence of each. A range, not a single number, because the weights differ by category: WB writes that electronics and dresses get bought differently.
The chart shows the main point. The top four factors add up to 120 percentage points in the sum of their maximum values, the other six together are under 30. WB separately writes about new items: they have no sales yet, so this factor is minimal for them, and the algorithm ranks them differently.
One more detail from the same instructions. Products that take part in both a promotion and an ad campaign at the same time get a higher ranking coefficient. WB gives an example of one card:
What sets the top 10 search results apart: 59,400 search positions
We split the search results into four zones: positions 1–10, 11–30, 31–100 and 101–300. Then we compared products in them by what's visible in the search results: reviews, rating, price, delivery time.
| Metric, median | Positions 1–10 | 11–30 | 31–100 | 101–300 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reviews per product | 1,527 | 242 | 53 | 23 |
| Rating 4.7 and above, share | 88% | 82% | 77% | 74% |
| Products with no reviews | 6% | 11% | 13% | 16% |
| Delivery time, hours | 54 | 54 | 54 | 54 |
| Photos per card | 12 | 12 | 11 | 10 |
Reviews set the top 10 apart the most. The median product in the top 10 positions has 1,527 reviews, while at positions 101–300 it's just 23. Comparing within each query gives the same picture: in 188 out of 198 "query and city" pairs, the top 10 has more reviews, usually 84 times more.
Here, reviews aren't so much a cause as a trace. Customers write reviews, so a product with 1,500 reviews behind it has thousands of sales. And sales in rubles plus conversion together give WB up to 45% of the weight. So the advice to "collect reviews" is only half right: WB weighs rating and reviews at 1 to 10%, while the main work is done by the sales standing behind them.
Promotion through price and deals
In 120 out of 198 pairs, the top 10 is cheaper than products in positions 101 to 300 for the same query. The median difference is minus 10%. The rule isn't strict: in 78 pairs the leaders are pricier, sometimes twice as much. Being cheap alone won't push you into the top, but it helps when everything else is on par.
Price works through two factors at once. During a deal, WB gives 7 to 15% of influence for small deals and 15 to 35% for large ones. And a low price lifts conversion, which carries up to 20% of weight on its own. The instructions separately describe a discount for the WB Club: if it's 5% or more on half your products or more, the ranking of those products improves, with an impact of up to 2%.
The customer sees not your price, but the price after the WB loyalty discount, which the marketplace pays for itself. The seller has no influence on its size, so you should calculate whether a deal is worthwhile based on your price after the discount, as in the unit economics calculator.
Boosting from delivery speed and warehouses
By WB's instructions, this is the heaviest factor, 30–40%. It counts the time from the warehouse to the pickup point plus the seller's order assembly time. In our data it looks more modest. Within the same query and the same city, the top ten deliver faster than positions 101–300 in only 97 out of 198 pairs, with a median difference of zero hours.
But cities differ:
| City | Delivery time for positions 1–10, hours | For positions 101–300, hours | Overlap of the top ten with Moscow |
|---|---|---|---|
| Moscow | 38 | 42 | benchmark |
| Saint Petersburg | 56 | 57 | 9.2 out of 10 |
| Novosibirsk | 54 | 69 | 9.1 out of 10 |
| Krasnodar | 65.5 | 71 | 9.3 out of 10 |
| Yekaterinburg | 42 | 38 | 9.1 out of 10 |
The top ten is almost the same across all five cities, on average 9 out of 10 products overlap with Moscow. In Novosibirsk and Krasnodar the leaders arrive 5 to 15 hours faster than the tail of the listing. Here's how we read it: delivery speed works like a gate. A top product has to reach all regions quickly, and the leaders have already done that. So within the top, delivery time barely tells them apart, while a newcomer without regional stock can't get in. We covered how to spread stock across warehouses in our articles on WB logistics and warehouse stock.
Advertising in the WB Продвижение portal
The ad portal opens inside the seller portal: «Продвижение», then «WB Продвижение». That's where you create campaigns, which answers the common question "wb promotion account." There are three payment models:
| Impressions, unified bid | Impressions, manual bid | Clicks | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where it shows | search, catalogue, recommendations | search and catalogue and/or recommendations | search and catalogue |
| Choice of display zone | no | yes | no |
| Bid | per 1,000 impressions | per 1,000 impressions | per click |
| Who it suits, per WB | those just starting out | those who know their niche | those who want to pay for actions |
WB counts a click as opening the product card, a quick view, or even adding to cart or to favourites straight from the search results. One campaign can hold up to 50 products from a single category, and the minimum budget is 1,000 ₽. WB recommends starting with 3,000 ₽.
Advertising works if the card is ready to convert it. WB itself says in its instructions that a product with frequent impressions and rare sales has no reason to stay at the top. If a campaign brings in impressions but conversion is low, its position drops afterward. We showed how to calculate campaign returns and which mistakes eat up the budget in our breakdown of 235 ad campaigns.
Wildberries ad promotion account: balance and account
The campaign budget is topped up from a unified account or with promo bonuses. The unified account has two parts, and they're often confused:
| Balance | Account | |
|---|---|---|
| Where the money comes from | held back from future sales | you top it up yourself: by card, via SBP, or by bank details |
| Amount | average "Total payable" over the last 3 weeks | however much you deposited |
| When credited | 75% on Tuesday, 25% on Thursday | right after payment |
| Can be withdrawn | no | no, only used for WB Advertising |
Money is deducted from the account first, then from the balance. If even one of the three weekly reports comes out negative, the balance isn't calculated. You can defer a balance deduction in the «Финансы» section. Deferring by a week is free, after that WB charges a commission, and it grows with the length of the delay. Promo bonuses are valid for a year, and there are no closing documents for them.
Card promotion: what completeness gets you
Card completeness carries a weight of up to 1%. That doesn't mean you can ignore it. The card decides whether a product shows up in search results for a query at all. WB matches the query against the title, attributes and description. It demotes cards with someone else's brand names, comma-separated word lists, and photos of the wrong product. So the card works as the entry point into search results, while your place within those results depends on sales, price and delivery. For how to fill in the fields and how many photos top sellers use, see the article on the product card.
In our sample, the top 10 have a median of 12 photos, while positions 101 to 300 have ten. The difference is small, and we wouldn't expect two extra photos to launch a card into the top.
How to promote a new product on Wildberries
A new listing has no sales and no reviews, and that's the main difference from the top 10. But new products still make it to the top: products with zero reviews take 6% of top 10 spots, on average 0.6 products per query. WB says that for new products the algorithm uses the same factors with a different priority.
The order that follows from WB's weights:
- A card without keyword stuffing and with honest photos, so the product shows up in search for the right queries at all.
- Stock closer to the customer: a warehouse in the region gives weight to delivery speed, up to 40%.
- A promo and ads at the same time. In WB's example, exactly this combination moved a card from spot 2,373 to spot 172.
- First reviews and replies to them: rating carries weight of up to 10%, and replies to reviews build trust in the card.
- A price that holds conversion, without sharp jumps. WB directly warns that raising the price when stock is running out is worse than letting stock hit zero: positions are kept when stock goes to zero, but a conversion drop drags the card down for a long time.
FAQ on promotion on Wildberries
Can you promote on Wildberries for free? Yes, through factors that cost nothing: regional warehouses, promotions, price, reviews and the product card. The only paid options are ads in WB Продвижение and the "Position boost" option in the rate constructor, which gives up to 3%.
How much does promotion on Wildberries cost? The minimum ad campaign budget is 1,000 ₽, WB recommends starting from 3,000 ₽. Beyond that the price depends on the model: a bid per 1,000 impressions or per click.
Where is the WB Продвижение account? In the seller portal, the «Продвижение» section, item «WB Продвижение». The «Финансы» section with the unified account is there too.
Why does a product card jump around in search results? According to WB, this happens because of ads, because of different checking conditions (authorisation, city, sorting), and in competitive categories where search results update quickly. Check your position on the site or in the app from the same city each time.
Do self-buyouts help? No. WB states that suspicious operations, such as self-buyouts, aren't counted in the sales calculation.
Search ranking factors work at the level of each individual product, and it's convenient to track them in a single window. Parus Seller shows search positions, reviews, stock by warehouse and ad returns, while the autobidder keeps bids within a set corridor. First two months free with promo code PARUS60, no card required: connect your store.
