Affiliate Disclosure Requirements: What the FTC Says You Must Write, and Where
Search for affiliate disclosure requirements and the first page is mostly companies selling plugins that generate a disclosure for you, plus templates copied from each other. Almost none of them quote the agency that writes the rules.
The Federal Trade Commission publishes its guidance on endorsements, influencers and reviews openly, in plain English, for free. It is more specific than the templates suggest, and several of its rules contradict what the most-copied templates actually do — including the one that puts a line at the top of every page and considers the job done.
This is what that guidance says, quoted directly, for anyone who links to a product, accepts a free sample, or plans to.
What Counts as a Material Connection
The trigger for disclosure is a “material connection,” and the definition is broader than money.
The FTC’s Disclosures 101 for Social Media Influencers states that a material connection “includes a personal, family, or employment relationship” or “a financial relationship – such as the brand paying you or giving you free or discounted products or services.”
Three consequences follow, and each one catches people out.
Money is not required. Anything of value you receive in connection with mentioning a product creates the connection. A free sample counts. A discount counts.
It extends past the specific product. If a brand gives you something free, the FTC says to disclose it even when you are talking about a different product from that brand.
Your own opinion of your objectivity is irrelevant. The guidance is explicit that you disclose “even if you believe your review is unbiased.” The rule exists for the reader’s benefit, not as an accusation about yours.
One limit worth knowing, from the FTC’s Endorsement Guides FAQ: if you bought the product yourself and have no relationship with the brand, “there isn’t an issue.” But if you have an ongoing relationship, “you should still disclose that relationship even if you buy the brand’s product yourself.”
Affiliate Disclosure Requirements: Why “Affiliate Link” Is Not Enough
This is the single most common mistake, and the FTC addresses it directly.
The FAQ says you “should disclose your relationship to the retailer clearly and conspicuously on your site.” Then it explains why the usual shorthand fails:
“Consumers might not understand that ‘affiliate link’ means that the person placing the link is getting paid.”
Read that carefully. The objection is not that the phrase is too short. It is that the phrase does not communicate the fact that matters — that you are paid when someone clicks. A label that is technically accurate but not understood is not a disclosure.
The test the FTC applies throughout is comprehension by an ordinary reader, not technical accuracy. “Affiliate link,” “partner link” and similar labels assume a vocabulary most readers do not have.
Where the Disclosure Has to Sit
The placement rules eliminate most of what sites actually do.
The principle from Disclosures 101: the disclosure should be “with the endorsement message itself.” And disclosures placed on an About Me page, on a profile page, at the end of a post or video, or behind a “more” link “are likely to be missed.”
The FAQ closes both of the remaining escape routes:
- Top of the page: “Readers might overlook a disclosure at the very top of the page, outside of the blog.”
- Bottom of the page: “Consumers may miss a disclosure at the bottom of a blog or page.”
The standard the FTC describes is proximity. A disclosure “is more likely to be seen if it’s very close to” the recommendation it relates to. Not somewhere on the page — next to the thing being recommended.
Disclosures 101 adds one more: do not bury it among hashtags or links.
| Where people usually put it | What the FTC says |
|---|---|
| About Me or profile page | “likely to be missed” |
| Very top of the page, above the content | “Readers might overlook” it |
| Bottom of the post | “Consumers may miss” it |
| Behind a “more” link | “likely to be missed” |
| Among hashtags | Do not bury it there |
| Next to the recommendation itself | “more likely to be seen” |
The Words That Work, and the Ones That Don’t
The guidance names specific terms on both sides, which is unusually concrete for a regulator.
| Accepted by the FTC | Rejected by the FTC |
|---|---|
| “advertisement,” “ad,” “sponsored” | “sp,” “spon,” “collab” |
| Plain sentences: “Thanks to Acme brand for the free product” | “thanks” on its own |
| “AcmePartner” or “Acme Ambassador” on space-limited platforms | “ambassador” on its own |
| #ad or #sponsored (described as optional) | A disclosure buried among hashtags |
Two further rules that are easy to miss.
The disclosure must also be in the same language as the endorsement, which matters for anyone publishing in a second language or across markets. And you should not rely solely on a platform’s built-in disclosure tool — use it in addition to your own clear disclosure, not instead of it.
Video, Live Streams and Images Have Their Own Rules
Format changes the requirement, and the description box is not a solution.
Video: the disclosure should be in the video itself, not only in the uploaded description. The FTC notes that viewers are more likely to notice a disclosure presented in both audio and video, because some watch without sound.
Live streams: repeat the disclosure periodically, so people who join partway through still see it.
Images and Stories: superimpose the disclosure on the image, and leave it on screen long enough to read.
Anyone building a channel should price this in from the first upload rather than retrofitting it later — it sits alongside the platform’s own requirements for publishing and monetizing as part of the same setup.
What Changed in 2023
The FTC updated the Endorsement Guides in June 2023, and the changes widen what the rules cover.
Review manipulation is now addressed directly — conduct such as editing or suppressing reviews “so as to distort what consumers think of a product.”
Incentivized reviews, reviews by employees, and fake negative reviews of competitors are covered, and the definition of “endorsements” was clarified regarding “the extent to which it includes fake reviews.”
“Clear and conspicuous” got a definition, and the release notes that a platform’s built-in disclosure tool may not be adequate.
Liability of advertisers, endorsers and intermediaries is better explained.
Child-directed advertising is described as “of special concern.”
The review-manipulation points matter well beyond influencer marketing. Deleting your own negative reviews, or asking employees to post positive ones, now sits inside the same framework.
Who Is Actually Liable
Three answers, all from the FAQ, and they are not the same answer.
The brand carries it: “Your company is ultimately responsible for what others do on your behalf.”
The endorser can carry some of it: “an endorser who isn’t an expert may be liable for misleading or unsubstantiated statements about a product’s performance” in certain circumstances.
And it is shared: “responsibility for clearly and conspicuously disclosing a material connection rests with the influencer and the brand.”
On enforcement against individuals specifically, the FTC says its “focus usually will be on advertisers or their ad agencies and public relations firms,” while “action against an individual endorser might be appropriate in certain circumstances” — one example given being an endorser who has not made required disclosures despite warnings.
That is the honest picture: the primary target is the company, the individual is not immune, and the practical risk for a small publisher is lower than the templates imply and higher than zero.
A Checklist You Can Apply Today
Six checks, each traceable to a line above.
Every affiliate link has a disclosure near it, not only a site-wide notice, and it says you are paid rather than saying “affiliate link.”
Free and discounted products are disclosed, including when you are discussing a different product from the same brand.
The disclosure uses a word the FTC named — ad, advertisement, sponsored, or a plain sentence — and not sp, spon, collab, or a bare “thanks.”
Video disclosures are inside the video, spoken and on screen, not only in the description.
The disclosure is in the same language as the content.
Any review practice is checked against the 2023 update — no suppressing negatives, no employee reviews posing as customers, no incentivised reviews without disclosure.
None of this requires a plugin. It requires a sentence in the right place, which is the part the plugins do not solve, and it applies from the very first thing you sell rather than at some later size.
What This Article Does Not Do
Four limits, stated plainly because the subject is legal.
This is not legal advice. It reports what a federal agency published. A specific situation can turn on facts this article cannot know.
This is U.S. guidance. The FTC’s authority covers U.S. commerce. Readers elsewhere — including anyone publishing from outside the U.S. to a U.S. audience — may face both these expectations and their own country’s rules, and nothing here describes the second.
Guidance is not identical to statute. The Endorsement Guides are the FTC’s published interpretation of how existing advertising law applies. They tell you how the agency reads the law; they are not themselves a separate criminal code.
Rules change. The 2023 revision is recent enough to show that. Check the FTC’s own pages, linked below, before relying on any specific wording.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the affiliate disclosure requirements in short? Disclose any material connection — payment, free or discounted products, or a personal, family or employment relationship — clearly, in language an ordinary reader understands, placed next to the recommendation itself rather than site-wide.
Is writing “affiliate link” enough? The FTC says it may not be: “Consumers might not understand that ‘affiliate link’ means that the person placing the link is getting paid.” A disclosure has to convey that you are paid, not just label the link.
Can I put one disclosure at the top of the page? The FTC warns against relying on it: “Readers might overlook a disclosure at the very top of the page, outside of the blog.” It gives the same warning about the bottom of a page. Proximity to the recommendation is the standard.
Do I need to disclose free products I was sent? Yes. Free or discounted products or services create a material connection, and the FTC says to disclose even when you are talking about a different product from that brand.
What if I bought the product myself? If you paid for it and have no relationship with the brand, the FTC says “there isn’t an issue.” If you have an ongoing relationship with the brand, disclose it anyway.
Is the platform’s own “paid partnership” tool enough? No. The FTC says not to rely solely on a platform’s disclosure tool, and the 2023 update notes such a tool may not be adequate. Use it in addition to your own disclosure.
Does a disclosure in a video description count? Not on its own. The FTC says the disclosure should be in the video itself, and notes that presenting it in both audio and visual form is more likely to be noticed, since some viewers watch without sound.
Can the FTC act against an individual creator rather than the brand? Its stated focus “usually will be on advertisers or their ad agencies and public relations firms,” but it says action against an individual endorser “might be appropriate in certain circumstances,” including where required disclosures were not made despite warnings.
Conclusion
The affiliate disclosure requirements that matter are not the ones in the templates. They are four specific things: disclose any material connection including free products, place the disclosure next to the recommendation rather than site-wide, use words a reader actually understands, and put video disclosures inside the video.
What makes this worth getting right is not fear of enforcement — the FTC says its usual focus is on advertisers, not individual creators. It is that every one of these rules exists to answer a question the reader would ask if they could: are you being paid to tell me this?
A site built on primary sources and verified numbers that hides its commercial relationships at the bottom of the page has undermined its own argument. The disclosure is not a legal tax on the content. It is part of the same claim the content is making.
That holds whichever way the money arrives — advertising revenue against pageviews, affiliate commission, or selling a service of your own. The reader’s question is the same in all three cases.
And it costs one sentence, in the right place, in words someone can understand.
Ready to go further? We’re building a course right here on the site that walks through exactly how this blog was built and monetized, step by step — from the first article to the first revenue. Keep an eye on future posts; we’ll share it as soon as it’s ready.
A Note from Lucas
I went looking for this because I am about to run ads and affiliate links on this site myself, and I wanted to know the actual rules rather than copy a template from a site that copied it from another site. The line that changed what I will do is the one about “affiliate link” possibly not being understood — I had assumed that phrase was the standard, and the FTC says in plain words that it may not communicate the thing that matters. The other surprise was how firmly the guidance rules out the two placements almost everyone uses, top of page and bottom of post, which means most disclosure setups I have seen are decorative. My recommendation, as someone doing this now: read the FTC’s own Disclosures 101 page end to end before you install anything that promises to handle it for you. It is short, it is free, and it is more specific than any product built on top of it.
About the Author
Lucas Palma is the founder and editor of Info Is The Key. He writes about online business, entrepreneurship, and the practical mechanics of building income independently, working from primary sources and official data rather than recycled advice.
Last Updated: October 2026 | Reading Time: 11 minutes
Editorial note: This article reports guidance published by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and accessed in October 2026, with every rule linked to its source. It is informational and is not legal advice. The Endorsement Guides are the FTC’s published interpretation of how existing advertising law applies, not a standalone statute, and they describe U.S. requirements only — other jurisdictions have their own rules, which this article does not cover. The Guides were last substantially revised in June 2023 and may change again; verify current wording directly with the FTC before relying on it for a specific situation.
Sources
- U.S. Federal Trade Commission — Disclosures 101 for Social Media Influencers
- U.S. Federal Trade Commission — The FTC’s Endorsement Guides: What People Are Asking
- U.S. Federal Trade Commission — Federal Trade Commission Announces Updated Advertising Guides to Combat Deceptive Reviews and Endorsements (June 2023)
- U.S. Federal Trade Commission — Endorsements, Influencers, and Reviews (business guidance hub)
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