About the client
A Wildberries seller with a focused SKU — seasonal demand and heavy in-category competition. In-platform ads were growing sales but not the “spike” needed before peak season. The brief: external traffic to the product card to lift orders fast, improve category ranking, and pay back creator investment.
KPIs were tied to unit economics: margin per order, marketplace logistics, platform commission. GUGA MEDIA aligned on a before/after comparison method and excluded weeks with the seller’s own discounts so results would not be distorted.
Strategy and tools
We chose Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts: short production cycles, strong organic push when the hook lands, and the ability to activate many micro and mid creators across segments. Long reviews stayed in reserve — for a two-week peak they were too slow on reach per rouble spent.
The creative grid spun around three product USPs and one clear CTA: “link in bio / pinned comment / comment with article number.” Every creator used a single UTM and short link to the card so analytics would not blur. Visuals: fast unboxing, tight shots of packaging and the article on screen, social proof (reviews on camera).
We split the roster into “reach” vs “trust”: the first delivered cheap millions of impressions, the second warmer clicks with lower card bounce. We rebalanced mid-week using creator reports and order dynamics.
Challenges and fixes
Some videos drifted into entertainment without a clear product view — click conversion suffered. We mandated a shot plan: product in the first two seconds, article in large type mid-video. Duplicate content hurt distribution; we spread scripts across A/B/C templates with different hooks (“ordering mistake”, “honest test”, “vs bestseller”).
We screened for inflated metrics from bad actors before payment. Platform moderation delays were buffered with backup creators and staggered publish dates.
Results in detail
During two active weeks, orders on the target SKU rose 5× versus the agreed baseline. Total reach across placements exceeded 1.2 million, with a meaningful share from organic extra reach on strong clips. ROI 290% used margin on units sold minus creator fees and template production costs.
On-platform, card sessions and add-to-cart rose in the attribution window; the client saw better category position by the end of week two. Best CPA often came from micro creators close to the product theme, not generic lifestyle accounts with millions of followers.
The deliverables included a next-season media plan: a green list of authors, banned creative tricks, and a recommended Reels vs Shorts budget split. We also shared hook insights — which first-frame lines drove the highest CTR.
Compared with in-cabinet ads, external traffic did not duplicate but reinforced organic card rank through add-to-cart and purchase conversion in a short window — consistent with typical marketplace algorithm behaviour.
For similar launches we recommend a returns post-mortem: if mass impulse buying drives returns, revenue ROI skews. Here returns stayed within the category norm, confirming traffic quality by cash retained, not only by order count.
We also compared cost per order with in-cabinet ad rates in the same period: at comparable margin, external influencer was competitive on CAC per order while adding brand UGC the seller reused on the card and owned social.
The client noted higher repeat purchase among buyers from external traffic in the two-week window — likely from more deliberate choice after seeing a review; that signal fed the LTV model for future marketplace pushes.