Ranking factors and boosts: what they are
Sellers and Ozon itself talk about ranking factors all the time, so let us settle on a clear definition. A ranking factor is a metric or a tool that, when you work on it, moves your positions and your sales volume in Ozon search results. It is something you as a seller and business owner can influence with your own actions, for better or worse.
Boosts are a different thing. A boost is artificial acceleration of your product card's growth. It happens when Ozon sees that some metrics on your card are improving, or that you have switched on a tool. When Ozon sees you taking the right actions, it gives you boosts to help you grow and move up.
The logic is simple. You take the right action on your card - you get a boost. You improve a ranking factor - you get a boost, and your positions and sales go up. You raise a product metric such as content rating or conversion - another boost. A boost is essentially your card rising in search on the wave of the positive actions you take with your ranking factors.
Why systematic work matters
Let us be clear from the start: there is no magic button that puts a card at the top, and no magic button for money. To reach high sales you need to understand which ranking factors and which boosts exist, and work on them in a targeted, systematic way. That is essentially the only route to the top of your category in a predictable, reliable way, with sales you can count on.
Everything else - grey methods and schemes - does not work in the long run. You may see spikes in the moment, but over a long distance they deliver nothing. What works long term is systematic work on ranking factors and boosts.
Ozon rewards sellers who sell correctly and with quality, from the point of view of the platform and of customers. Here is how that translates into sales. Your card sits higher - you get more impressions. The higher your card in search, the more impressions you get. More impressions means more orders. More orders means more boost. Conversion and click-through rate grow, and that earns you more boost. After the boost your positions improve again, you get even more impressions, even more orders, and so on. It is a snowball effect: when you set up work on these boosts correctly, every action multiplies the correct actions you took before.
Factor 1: CTR and conversion
The first factor is the click-through rate (CTR) and conversion of your product card. Strictly speaking these are two factors, but let us treat them together.
CTR is how clickable your card is in search results: the ratio of people who saw your card to those who clicked on it. The principle: the higher your CTR, the higher the platform algorithm will lift your product.
Conversion is the share of people who bought after clicking on your card. There are different conversions - from click to cart, from cart to order - but broadly it is the ratio of people who saw your product to those who bought it. The principle is the same: the higher your card's conversion, the higher your product will rank. The Ozon algorithm sees that your conversion is above the rest and that your product deserves promotion.
How to raise CTR and conversion
If your CTR and conversion are low, start with the simplest things:
- Make the main photo bright, high quality and contrasting. The cover should attract attention and make people want to click.
- Keep the title clear and keyword-rich: what the product is and what it is for. Do not stuff a pile of comma-separated keywords into it. Clear, concise, no clutter.
- Badges work well: a promotion, 200 reviews, extra points and so on. They genuinely raise click-through rate.
- Keep the price in the market range: not much more expensive than competitors and not much cheaper. People will not pay more when cheaper equivalents exist, but a price that is far too low is also a warning sign that something is wrong with quality. That is how many buyers think.
- The description should state real customer benefits.
Practical task
Do not just write "we sell this, these sizes, this weight". Say specifically what the buyer needs the product for. Open your product card, pick one of your top products and compare it with five top competitors in search results. Check where their cards are better: photos, infographics, titles, prices, reviews, ratings, card layout, copy. Your task is to make at least three changes to your card on these points. That is exactly how you raise CTR and conversion and make this ranking factor work in your store's favour.
Factor 2: delivery speed
The second ranking factor is delivery speed. The FBO or rFBS model works well here. Why does this factor exist at all? Ozon wants buyers to receive goods fast. People are spoiled today and often compare several marketplaces. If a buyer sees that the same product arrives faster on another marketplace, they will most likely order there. So marketplaces compete for the highest possible delivery speed, and Ozon rewards sellers with high delivery speed with boosts and better positions.
FBO and rFBS earn boosts
As a rule, these are sellers trading on FBO or rFBS. With FBO - you ship to Ozon's warehouse - you automatically get an increased boost for delivery speed. With FBS or rFBS, Ozon looks at how fast you actually ship. If you ship in a month on FBS, there is no boost to speak of. A week or so does not work either. What works well now is delivery within a few days.
How to speed up delivery
- Move top products and top SKUs to FBO if they have stable demand and sales.
- If you work on FBS, ship as fast as possible. Ideally ship on the day of the order and do not delay shipments. Keep in mind that this strongly affects your final positions and sales.
- Use rFBS to speed up delivery, if your unit economics and your product allow investment in rFBS and fast delivery.
Practical task
Check which of your products are on FBO and which are on FBS - simply rank them. Then identify at least one or two products you can move to FBO or rFBS if you trade on FBS. Do not move the whole assortment at once: start with one or two products and learn on them. That is what activates the delivery speed ranking factor.
Factor 3: price index
The third ranking factor is a boost for products with a favourable or moderate price index. The price index is one of the key ranking factors today and strongly affects your positions and sales. Ozon compares your price with competitors' prices and with prices of other sellers on other platforms. If your price is lower or roughly average, the product gets a boost on the price index factor, better positions, more impressions in search and, in the end, more sales. If the price is inflated, the product gets a deboost: fewer impressions, less traffic, fewer sales, less money for you.
So working on the price index is one of the key areas to think about. What can you do?
- Monitor competitors' prices with Ozon analytics. Watch how their prices change and react to those changes.
- Run a seller promotion. For example, give a 5% discount for three days and track the effect on sales and positions. The point is to see whether a 5% seller discount activates the price index factor at all. This makes sense for products with an unfavourable price index, the ones being deboosted. If your products already have a favourable or moderate price index, there is nothing I would recommend doing here.
Practical task
Check the price index of your top products, the ones that generate the largest share of demand. Then pick one of them and test, for example, a price cut for three days. See how impressions changed, how orders changed and how the search position changed overall. That is worth tracking too.
Factor 4: reputation and reviews
The fourth factor is reputation: reviews, rating, complaints about your product and so on. Ozon takes into account reviews, product rating and buyer complaints. The higher the rating and the more positive reviews your products have, the higher they sit in search, the more traffic they get and the more sales they make. Complaints and returns matter too: they lower the rating and reduce your product's visibility. A high return rate has a very strong effect on boosts and deboosts. A large number of returns deboosts your product heavily, and your positions and sales end up lower.
What can you do?
- Launch a loyalty system, for example reviews in exchange for points.
- Monitor negative reviews and resolve problems quickly. When a negative review arrives, find out why: product quality, a shipping mistake, a mix-up. Always work through negative reviews. We often see that when we respond, people calm down and after a few days may replace the review.
Practical task
Review the reviews on your products for the last month, find three negative reviews and work out a plan for handling them: what questions to ask, what to offer. Work through three negative reviews and decide what you will do with such reviews going forward.
Factor 5: advertising and promotions
The fifth factor is the boost from using advertising and the boost from taking part in promotions. Pay-per-click or pay-per-order advertising, promotions and search promotion lift a product in search. They take time, but they carry a boosting function. Why does it work this way? Because Ozon likes products that are actively advertised and actively take part in promotions. The Ozon algorithm gives such products an increased boost. For Ozon this is a good signal that your product is potentially interesting even without advertising - that it is a product that sells and brings Ozon profit without ads. Ozon reasons that if it invests in it and boosts it further, the product will bring even more revenue. The Ozon algorithm is ultimately built to bring more revenue to Ozon, and to the seller too, but the platform's job is to earn money for its shareholders.
What can you do?
- Run paid advertising for 3 to 7 days and analyse the result. Look at how click-through rate changes and what ad cost share (ACOS) you get. After 5 to 7 days of advertising you will see the resulting ACOS, the cost of acquiring a customer and the click-through rate.
- Take part in Ozon promotions if your unit economics genuinely allow it. Promotions differ: some give a big boost but require a big discount, others give a smaller boost with a smaller discount. Find the middle ground that fits your unit economics and still leaves you a profit.
Practical task
Pick one product, run a short advertising campaign and record the ACOS, the acquisition cost and the click-through rate. Then compare the positions before and after.
How to implement the improvements
Suppose you have gone through every factor and done the practical tasks. Everything else looks fine - reviews are in order, you use advertising, you ship on FBO - but the price index task shows a gap. That means one ranking factor is your biggest problem.
Your homework for this lesson is to implement at least two improvements that address the lagging ranking factor. Then write down which factors you chose, for which product and what you decided to change: the product, which ranking factor is lagging and by how much, and what you will change.
I strongly recommend doing the practical tasks and the final homework. They are the ways in which, even on this essentially free course, you can already scale your sales. There are quite a lot of factors and tasks here, but even by working with these metrics and ranking factors, implementing the practical tasks and doing the homework, you can already increase your sales volume and scale a little. The biggest growth will come from deeper systematic work, but implement at least this and you will get a first result in sales growth.
Summary
Work through the practical tasks and implement at least two improvements for your lagging factors. That will help you increase sales and scale.
