As with every business model,  there are regulations inside our industry. FTC rules for Affiliates.

Fun fact: I'm not a lawyer, obviously, 🤭 but I also want you to know that I've never even played a lawyer in television or movies.

Therefore, it's your responsibility to be abreast of all FTC regulations in regard to your business and stay within the boundaries of what they are providing.

That being said, I have put together a short overview so that you can get an idea as to what the FTC is saying. This is not at all comprehensive NOR is it deemed legal advise.

Again, make sure you go to their website and educate yourself.

When Affiliate marketers or other people who might be compensated for mentioning brands and products on the internet talk about the brands and products that they are paid to talk about, the FTC requires that this relationship is disclosed.

That means, basically, that you have to tell your audience that you are getting compensated.

Here are some key points:

- Any Affiliate who receives compensation, must state that fact in EVERY advertisement, post, ad, or promotion they send out.

- Affiliates must disclose that they are “receiving compensation” from the company providing the product/service.

- Affiliates must disclose this right away and every single time

- The words used to disclose, must be 4th grade English so that the reasonable consumer fully and clearly understands.

- Where the disclosure is located in the advertisement; the size/color of the font must be obvious (this does not mean gaudy, just obvious)

- The disclosure must be on the same screen/page, which means no scrolling to find the fine print.

- Hyperlinks are discouraged because they are not always obvious. If hyperlinks are used (such as in the case of a sales page), then the anchor text needs to make clear that the publisher of the advertisement is being compensated.

- Disclosures located only on the sales page, are NOT sufficiently clear.

Summary

It isn't enough to make a disclosure. It is also your responsibility as a publisher and advertiser that the disclosures you make are clear and conspicuous, and that users notice them, and are able to understand them.

Here are a couple of links that are very helpful to fully understand the above points

https://termly.io/resources/articles/ftc-affiliate-disclosure/

https://www.privacypolicies.com/blog/ftc-affiliate-disclosure/