Affiliate Disclosure
The Federal Trade Commission announced that they will begin going after bloggers — as well as the companies that compensate them — for any false claims or failure to disclose compensation, free gifts, and other conflicts of interest. Content marketing is the most powerful online advertising strategy there is, and the FTC regulates advertising. In fact, I made that suggestion way back in December of wow, has it been that long? Many of my friends in the affiliate marketing industry did not take kindly to my legal observations at the time.
Sample Affiliate Disclaimer Statements For Your Website
Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own. Imagine reading a great review of a product that you would want to buy. There are pictures, pros, and cons, and the information is helpful for you to decide to buy that product. Would you like to know that the author of the review will receive a commission if you buy the product?
Would that affect your thoughts about the glowing review? These guidelines require bloggers to disclose affiliate links in their posts so that the readers would know that the blogger will receive a commission if a reader makes a purchase. An affiliate disclosure statement is something that you may have seen on a lot of blogs and never given much thought to it.
However, if you are blogging in a serious way, you will understand that the practice of disclosing your relationship with the product that you promote ensures fair business practices. All fellow bloggers must disclose their affiliate links as well, and all of your audience can make informed decisions about future purchases. After you have written a post and included some affiliate links, take into consideration these rules on how to add affiliate disclosure statements correctly. Disclosure statements must be placed on any post on a blog or in social media, where a product is promoted, from which the blogger will get compensation.
So if you recommend an online course on your blog to your readers, a disclosure statement must be on a page. And if you share a pin on Pinterest that leads to a product with your affiliate link, at least ad should be added to the description. It must be immediately clear that you may receive compensation for your review or rating.
You should write in simple terms that are understandable to your audience. The disclosure must be placed in a way that is easy to see, preferably at the top of the page. The text size should be at least the same as the main text of the page. The color should be contrasting with the background so that it would be easy to read. You should not hide the disclosure behind a link. You can easily find an example of my statement at the top of this post. And here are some affiliate disclosure statements from other bloggers.
Not all of them are ideal and corresponding to FTC guidelines, but these may be an inspiration to you when you will create your own disclosure statement:.
A few days ago I got a scary e-mail reminder from one of the companies whose products I have promoted on my blog. It said that there absolutely must be a disclosure statement on each post where I have added an affiliate link.
So I searched for an automatic solution. There is a WordPress affiliate disclosure plugin, which adds an affiliate disclosure statements automatically to all of the posts in a blog. Do all of my posts have affiliate links in them? Probably not. After installation, activate the plugin. In the opened page of settings write your own affiliate disclosure statement and save changes.
Now you have an affiliate disclosure statement on all of your posts. It is visible clearly both on desktop and mobile devices. And it is formatted according to your blog theme. If you want to make money by selling products on your blog, check out this affiliate marketing training to make your first affiliate sale. What other routine formalities of blogging would you like to automate?
Which are your favorite WordPress plugins? I usually just put the affiliate link disclaimer in the bottom footer of my websites. I find them so ugly-looking that I want to hide them as far down as is cybernetically possible.
Mine looks like the following:. So far it seems to work just fine. Thank you for this post! It was very helpful. I was able to set up my disclosure with ease. I appreciate your content.
Keep up the great work! If you read the FTC guideline, putting it at the bottom of the link will likely not be compliant. You see so many blogs breaching the FTC rules. That bugs me. It MUST be before the affiliate link. The next Google update may ban non-compliant websites. If you make a full-time income from blogging, your site will take a hit for non-compliance and you will lose your income.
FTC disclosure must be at the top of every blog post!!! Thank you for sharing these additional details for this information with clarity. Great post, Una! Love how simply you put it all. And adding a plugin to take off this task off your to-do list for every blog post is such a great idea!! Either way, awesome blog post. You rock! Thank you so much for this information.
For many products online you can get a unique affiliate link. You may earn a small commission from any person who buys that product by clicking on your link. When you share such links on your blog, you have to tell your readers, that the links may result in you receiving a reward. Thank you so much for this post! This was really helpful! Have you had any troubles since installing it?
Thanks for the info! That means you can no longer edit the statement which makes this plugin useless to me. Am I missing something? However, you can access settings from another place.
Thanks for your informational post! I was able to add in my disclosure on each post with this plugin, but now when it shows my related posts at the bottom of my blog, it shows the disclosure as the snippet being shown. Do you know how to change this? Hi, for me it sounds like the fault of the related post plugin. You could check, if there is an option for your related post plugin to not show the snippet.
You could write in the related post plug-ins support page about the issue. You could try to find some other plugin to show the related posts. You could try some other plugin for disclosures, maybe there is a plugin that works better with your related post plugin.
Thank you for the info! I used it and it worked! I was trying to put the disclaimer in each post at the beginning, but then it would show up in the blog excerpt. Thanks much! This has been a great help.
I was able to use your recommendation and instructions to add disclosures to my posts now. That was super easy!! Thank you! At the moment my affiliate disclosure is on my sidebar so you can see it on every page no matter what.
I have been looking for a way to add it to every post so that I can get it off my sidebar. My Amazon disclosure is in my disclosure page as well as on my side bar too. I may keep my Amazon disclosure in the sidebar even after adding this to all my posts. Amazon requires specific wording and I am not sure if it can just be added in another page with a link. If I disclose a simple affiliation in general in every post with a link to the disclosure, maybe I can put my specific Amazon disclosure in my footer along with in my disclosure.
I loved this post! Thanks for the tips, Una! Thanks so much for this!! This was such a great find! Your email address will not be published. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam.
An affiliate disclosure is a disclaimer statement that informs consumers or potential buyers that you are in a paid relationship with the company or person you're. The affiliate disclosure policy states that if you are an affiliate marketer, then you must clearly disclose your relationship with the merchant.
Are you a blogger looking to join an affiliate marketing program? These are a great way to earn a little extra money by promoting products relevant to your user base. That might sound scary, but as long as you follow the FTC guidelines, you have nothing to worry about. Bloggers and content creators hold a lot of power over their users.
However, everything you built could be shutdown in an instant.
Are you an affiliate marketer, blogger, or site owner who is making money online by promoting products of companies based in the USA, the UK, or Canada? Affiliate marketing is a well-known division of digital marketing where merchants or advertisers work with affiliates or publishers , affiliate networks like Commission Junction , and other third parties to sell their products. In return, these merchants provide a commission to their affiliate publishers.
Affiliate Disclosure
May 12, John Hughes. Links are the foundation of affiliate marketing. As such, some marketers may add paid-for links to their blogs and websites freely, without a thought to any repercussions. Unfortunately, undisclosed links of this kind can create a legal nightmare. An affiliate link disclosure as seen on Amy Lynn Andrews. Affiliate link disclosures are an FTC-mandated practice.
Affiliate Disclosures — How to Write and Add Them to Your WordPress-Powered Affiliate Site
Enroll here! An affiliate disclosure is a statement that lets your readers or followers know when affiliate links are being used on your blog or on any other platform. Ideally, a good affiliate disclosure should clue your readers in on the fact that you have something to gain from recommending a certain product or brand, so that they can get a full overview of what your intentions might be. As I said, whenever you use an affiliate link, you must also add an affiliate disclosure. And here is why:. The post also addresses disclosing practices for working with brands on sponsored posts and other types of connections between advertisers and endorsers, so it might be useful if you monetize your blog that way as well. A lot of new affiliate marketers are afraid to disclose their links because they think it will turn people away and that they will miss out on clicks and sales. Or at least, you should. And now, the fun part!
Some of the links in this post are affiliate links.
The following is based on the FTC Disclosure Guidelines of December, and May , as well as our conversations with the FTC on how those guidelines apply to our particular program. Legacy Learning Systems requires its affiliates to disclose their affiliation with us precisely as described in this document. These requirements apply to affiliates who promote our products via written reviews, testimonials, endorsements or other forms of written promotion.
How to Turn Disclosure Into a Selling Point
If you were in the middle of a high stakes Poker game and ran out of cash, would you risk betting your blog or business to keep going? If you have concerns about your unique situation, consult with a lawyer about it. This blog post has been developed with U. If you are located in another country, these rules may still apply to you but you are also encouraged to seek out the appropriate local organizations to assist you. The most recent guidelines were released in , followed by an FAQ style section in The media noticed his FTC faux paux and called him out :. The Kardashian family, including Kylie Jenner and Scott Disick, have also come under fire for failing to include proper disclosures in their product endorsements on social media. Which resulted in a third party reporting them to the FTC:. The FTC is a large organization with over 1, employees. They do spot checks and continually roll out new initiatives to crack down on bad behavior.
How To Properly Disclose Your Affiliate Links + Free Affiliate Disclaimer Template
Affiliate links have long been a way for website owners to earn money from their pages. Even a link can be framed as an advertisement with the right wording. Affiliate links on the other hand, are different. Neither do they get paid when a user clicks on them. Instead, the payment happens when someone makes a purchase through the link via a tracking code. Only that the links leading out imply a financial relationship between the website and the product. In , the FTC decided to lightly regulate this business model. They wanted to make sure that users knew about the financial relationship of the site to the products that they link to.