FTC affiliate disclosure rules: what brands must check

FTC affiliate disclosure rules come from the Endorsement Guides at 16 CFR Part 255, last revised in 2023 and effective July 26, 2023 [1]. They say that when a partner earns money, free product or any other benefit from a brand they recommend, the connection must be disclosed "clearly and conspicuously": hard to miss, easy to understand, and on social media or the web, unavoidable. The disclosure belongs next to the recommendation, in the same medium as the claim, so a YouTube video needs it in the video and not only in the description [2]. Brands are not bystanders: section 255.1(d) says an advertiser can be liable for a deceptive endorsement even when the endorser is not, and should guide, monitor and correct its partners. This post explains the rules channel by channel, adds the UK view, and ends with a checklist. It is a plain-language summary, not legal advice; talk to a lawyer about your own program.

What are the FTC affiliate disclosure rules?

There is no single "affiliate law". In the United States the relevant rule is section 5 of the FTC Act, which prohibits deceptive practices, and the Endorsement Guides explain how the FTC applies section 5 to endorsements and testimonials. Section 255.0(a) is candid about their status: the Guides are administrative interpretations that provide the basis for voluntary compliance, and practices inconsistent with them may lead to corrective action under section 5 after an investigation [1]. In practice, brands and creators treat them as the rulebook because the FTC tells you in advance how it will judge you.

Three definitions do most of the work. An endorsement is any advertising message that consumers are likely to believe reflects the opinions or experience of someone other than the advertiser, and the 2023 text explicitly adds that tags in social media posts can be endorsements. A product includes any product, service, brand, company or industry, so a SaaS subscription is covered. And section 255.5 says a material connection between the endorser and the seller must be disclosed when it might affect the weight or credibility the audience gives the endorsement and the audience would not expect it. Connections listed include business, family or personal ties, payment, free or discounted products, and perks such as early access [1].

Affiliate commission is the textbook material connection. A reader who sees "this is the best tool for invoicing freelancers" weighs it differently once they know the writer earns 20% of every subscription the link produces. That is the whole idea: the disclosure does not forbid the recommendation, it gives the reader the fact they need to judge it.

What changed in the 2023 Endorsement Guides

The FTC announced the revised Guides in June 2023 and published them in the Federal Register on July 26, 2023, replacing the version that had stood since 2009 [1]. Four changes matter most to a partner program.

• A definition of "clear and conspicuous" now sits in the Guides themselves (section 255.0(f)), instead of only in staff guidance. The core test is that a disclosure is difficult to miss and easily understandable by ordinary consumers.
• The visual and audible rule is spelled out: a claim made visually needs at least a visual disclosure, a claim made by voice needs at least an audible one, and a claim made both ways needs both. A disclosure shown and spoken at the same time is more likely to pass.
• For interactive electronic media such as social media and the internet, the disclosure should be unavoidable. A disclosure behind a "more" link, a click, or a scroll past the call to action does not meet that word.
• Advertiser duties are written out in section 255.1(d): give endorsers guidance, monitor compliance, and take action to remedy and prevent non-compliance. The text adds that this is not a safe harbor, but good-faith guidance, monitoring and remedial action reduce the odds of an enforcement action.

The definition also says the disclosure must not be contradicted or mitigated by anything else in the communication, and that when an endorsement targets a specific audience, "ordinary consumers" means members of that audience. A developer newsletter is judged by how a developer reads it, a parenting channel by how parents watch it.

What does a clear and conspicuous disclosure look like?

The FTC staff FAQ, "The FTC's Endorsement Guides: What People Are Asking", turns the definition into specific advice [2]. Placement comes first: the closer the disclosure is to the claim, the better. A disclosure at the very top of a blog page outside the content, or at the bottom after the reader has already clicked, can be missed. A disclosure in the comments is inadequate, and a hyperlinked "DISCLOSURE" button is easy to avoid and therefore inadequate too. Then readability: a simple font, enough contrast with the background, a size that stands out. Then wording: plain words a reader understands without context.

Wording is where most partner content slips. The FAQ notes that consumers might not understand that "affiliate link" means the person placing it is paid, and it suggests a sentence such as "I get commissions for purchases made through links in this post" [2]. "Disclosures 101 for Social Media Influencers", the FTC's short guide for creators, lists "advertisement", "ad" and "sponsored" as clear, accepts #ad and #sponsored as hashtags, and warns against vague or shorthand terms like "sp", "spon" and "collab", and against a stand-alone "thanks" or "ambassador" [3]. It also says the disclosure should be in the same language as the endorsement.

How to disclose affiliate links on YouTube

Video has the most specific guidance because it is the easiest place to hide a disclosure. The FAQ says the disclosure belongs in the video itself; the description alone is not enough. Put it at the beginning and ideally repeat it, and if the endorsement appears in the middle of a long video, disclose right before or at the start of that segment. Saying it and showing it on screen together is most effective. For affiliate links, disclose the relationship in the video and again next to the links in the description. Live streams need the disclosure repeated or shown continuously, because viewers join at any time [2].

YouTube has its own requirement on top. Its help page asks creators to declare paid product placements, sponsorships and endorsements by ticking the paid promotion option in YouTube Studio, which adds a disclosure label at the start of the video [4]. Disclosures 101 is clear that a platform tool is not a substitute: use it in addition to your own disclosure, not instead of it [3]. In a brief, that means three separate lines: say it in the first 30 seconds or before the segment, show it on screen, and tick the paid promotion box.

Blogs, newsletters and Reddit

Blogs and review sites

On a blog the disclosure goes before the first affiliate link, in the body text, in the same font size as the article. A site-wide disclosure page linked from the footer is fine as an extra, but it is not the disclosure, because a reader who arrives on the article and clicks the first link never sees it. If a long "best tools" article has a dozen links, one clear sentence near the top of the content plus "paid link" labels beside the links is a practical pattern that follows the FAQ's point about proximity [2].

Newsletters

A newsletter is an interactive electronic medium, so the "unavoidable" standard applies. A sponsored section should be labelled at its top, before the pitch, not in the footer under the unsubscribe link. If an affiliate link appears inside an otherwise editorial roundup, a short note in the same line ("paid link" or "I earn a commission if you subscribe") keeps the disclosure next to the claim it qualifies.

Reddit and forums

Reddit is where disclosure gets skipped most often, because the culture rewards posts that look like plain advice. The FTC principles do not change: a comment that recommends a tool and carries an affiliate link or a partner coupon is an endorsement with a material connection, and the disclosure belongs in that comment, not in the poster's profile. Many communities also have their own rules about self-promotion and affiliate links, and some ban them outright, so the honest route is often a disclosed recommendation with no link at all. A brand should never ask a partner to break a community's rules; the brief should say so.

What brands are responsible for

Section 255.1(d) is the paragraph every program owner should read. Advertisers are subject to liability for misleading or unsubstantiated statements made through endorsements, and for failing to disclose unexpected material connections. An advertiser may be liable even when the endorser is not. The three duties are guidance, monitoring, and action to remedy and prevent non-compliance [1]. The FAQ adds detail: a reasonable program explains what claims are permitted, tells partners how to disclose, periodically searches what partners are actually saying, and acts on problems. The scope should match the risk of consumer harm, so a health product needs more oversight than a calendar app. Outsourcing to an agency does not move the responsibility, and pre-approving paid posts is recommended [2].

Monitoring does not mean reading every post forever. The FAQ describes a reasonable period, such as a few months after a contract ends, rather than a fixed rule [2]. It does mean having a record. If the FTC ever asks what you did, "we sent the guidelines on signup and checked a sample every month, and here are the three partners we asked to fix a post" is a far better answer than "we trusted them".

A rough workload estimate helps make this concrete. Suppose a program has 40 active content partners who publish two pieces a month each, so 80 new pieces. Checking each one takes about 3 minutes if the brief lists exactly what to look for: 80 × 3 = 240 minutes, four hours a month. A 25% monthly sample of older pieces adds 40 × 2 × 0.25 × 3 = 60 minutes. These are illustrative numbers, but they show that compliance monitoring is a few hours of work, not a department.

The UK view: ASA and CAP labels

If your partners reach UK audiences, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) and the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) apply their own guidance, and it is stricter on wording. CAP's March 2023 advice asks for a prominent label upfront, which usually means at the beginning of the ad, and timely, so people know it is an ad before they watch, read or click. Labels such as "Ad", "Advert", "Advertising", "Ad Feature" and "Advertisement Feature" are likely acceptable, with or without a hashtag or brackets [5]. The ASA publishes a fuller Influencers' guide, developed with the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) [6].

The important difference: CAP advises against "sponsored", because it is open to varied interpretation, and against "Supported by", "Funded by", "Gifted", "Thanks to X for making this possible", "affiliate", "aff", "sp" and "spon" [5]. The FTC accepts "sponsored" [3]. A program with partners in both markets should standardize on "Ad" or "#ad" upfront plus a plain commission sentence beside affiliate links, which satisfies the stricter reading in both places. Disclosures 101 also notes that US law can apply to posts made abroad when they will reasonably affect US consumers, so a UK creator with a US audience should meet both standards [3].

How to build disclosure into your program

Disclosure fails mostly through omission, not intent: a partner forgets, or copies a template from another brand that did not include it. The fix is to make disclosure part of the workflow at three points: when a partner joins, when they accept a brief, and when they deliver.

1. Put a disclosure section in your program terms with the exact sentences you want used per channel, in the languages your partners publish in.
2. Repeat the channel-specific rule in every content brief, as a required item, not a footnote.
3. Check every delivered piece before you confirm it and pay. Look for the disclosure near the link, not just somewhere on the page.
4. When a piece fails, ask for the fix before paying, and record the request.
5. Once a month, open a sample of older affiliate content and check that the disclosure is still there; edits and redesigns remove it more often than people expect.
6. Keep the record: brief version, check date, result, fix date.

RelayWonder builds the third step into content campaigns. When a partner submits a content URL, an automatic check confirms the page is reachable, the tracking link and coupon are present, a disclosure is present, the brand is named, and the brief's question is answered; the brand confirms delivery only after reviewing it, and the bounty is recorded in the ledger at that point. A check like this catches the common miss. It does not decide whether a particular disclosure is legally sufficient, which is still your judgment.

What to do this week

• Read section 255.0(f) and 255.1(d) in the Federal Register text [1]; they are two paragraphs.
• Write one disclosure sentence per channel you use, and add them to your program terms and brief template.
• Open the five most-clicked partner pages from the last 90 days and check each for a disclosure near the first link.
• If you have UK partners, switch your default label to "Ad" upfront.
• Decide who checks deliveries and how often, and write it down.