Affiliate marketing is an excellent way to monetize your website or blog, but it comes with its responsibilities. One of the most critical requirements is to include a clear and effective affiliate disclosure.
In this guide, we’ll explain everything you need to know about affiliate disclosures, how to write one, where to place it, and provide examples to help you align with guidelines.
An affiliate disclosure is a statement that informs your audience or website visitors that you earn a commission when they purchase a product or service through your affiliate links, or that you receive gifted products or services for your affiliation.
Affiliate marketing is usually regulated by guidelines, such as the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) in the United States or the European Advertising Standards Alliance’s (EASA) in the European Union. These guidelines require marketers to disclose their relationship with the companies they promote.
Adding an affiliate disclosure to your blog or social media content allows you to be transparent with your audience and strengthens your credibility.
Affiliate marketing and, more in general, advertising is regulated to prevent misleading advertising and increase transparency.
In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission issued the “Guides Concerning Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising”. These guidelines regulate any advertising, from standard advertising to digital ads, influencer, or affiliate marketing.
According to the FTC, endorsements must reflect the honest opinions and experience of the endorser, and any false or deceptive endorsement can lead to legal consequences.
When there is a relationship between an endorser and the seller of an advertised product, this relationship should always be disclosed in a “clear and conspicuous” way. This means that the endorser should add a disclosure that is difficult to miss and easy to understand.
The FTC doesn’t require you to disclose all the details of the relationship, but you must clearly communicate the nature of the connection.
In the case of affiliate marketing, this means disclosing that you are earning a commission from this connection.
In the EU, affiliate marketing is subject to the same rules as influencer marketing. In fact, affiliation is one of the ways that influencers can earn money by partnering with a brand.
Because influencer and affiliate marketing are related to advertising, you must comply with European consumer law, which is applied by national authorities at a national level. Failure to comply with these laws can result in legal consequences and fines.
To guide influencers and marketers in their activities, the European Advertising Standards Alliance (EASA) has published a set of guidelines and best practices:
EASA also created a tool, DiscloseMe, to help influencers and marketers understand how to disclose their partnership with a brand.
A clear, concise affiliate disclaimer could look something like this:
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you click and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
Depending on where you publish your content, you may choose to vary your disclosure.
On a blog post, it can be placed at the beginning of the post, to inform readers of the presence of affiliate links. This is how they do it on Dev.to, as you can see in the example below:
On social media, you could add relevant hashtags to your copy, like #ad, #advertising.
On YouTube or other video platforms, you may choose to add the disclosure to the description of your video and then mention the partnership in your video. Something like: “Affiliate links included. I earn a commission if you purchase through these links.”
These are just some examples. Your affiliate disclosure should be customized to fit your tone and specific activity, but it must clearly communicate that you earn a commission from affiliate links.
Writing an affiliate disclosure isn’t complicated, but it must meet certain requirements to be effective. Here’s how:
As we said, one of the requirements of affiliate disclaimers is to be clear and easy to understand. For this reason, you should avoid complex language: your audience should immediately understand the nature of your relationship with the brand.
Both the FTC and EASA suggest adding your disclosure where it’s hard to miss. For example, you could add a reference to the partnership at the beginning of the post, both on social media and blog posts.
Sometimes, it’s necessary to specify in what affiliation program you’re participating. An example is the Amazon Associate Program. In their terms, Amazon suggests you to be specific about your affiliate links:
“As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.”
Placement is just as important as the wording. Your affiliate link disclosure should be conspicuous and hard to miss, otherwise your posts could be seen as misleading advertising and expose you to legal issues.
Here are a few spots where you could add your disclaimer:
As you can see, disclosing your affiliations is essential to doing marketing right. Being transparent and honest with your audience will help you build a trusting relationship that is more likely to last.
Remember to consistently add your affiliate disclosures to your posts, and to make them easily accessible and visible.
Read our dedicated guides for a full overview:
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