2026-06-15

If you run affiliate links on a blog, YouTube channel, or social account, the FTC has one core expectation: your audience needs to know when a recommendation comes with a financial incentive attached. That's the entire principle behind the Endorsement Guides, last substantially updated in 2023 — and it applies whether you're a solo blogger or running a six-figure affiliate operation.

Here's the checklist we use internally when auditing content, broken into the parts that actually matter.

1. Placement: proximity beats burial

A disclosure buried in an "About" page or behind a "read more" link doesn't count, no matter how clearly it's worded. The FTC's test is whether a reasonable consumer would see it before encountering the affiliate link or recommendation itself. For blog posts, that means above the fold, near the top of the article — not in a footer.

2. Wording: plain language, not legal hedging

"Affiliate Link" alone is explicitly called out by the FTC as inadequate, because a meaningful share of readers don't know what that phrase means. A stronger version: "This post contains affiliate links — I may earn a commission if you buy through them, at no extra cost to you." Say the thing, don't gesture at it.

3. Platform-specific placement rules

• Blog posts: near the top of the post, and ideally repeated near the specific affiliate link if the post is long.
• YouTube: verbal disclosure in the first 30 seconds, plus a written disclosure in the description above the "show more" fold, plus the platform's own paid-promotion checkbox (which supplements but does not replace your disclosure).
• Instagram/TikTok: disclosure in the first line or two of the caption, before it gets truncated — not buried at the end of a hashtag list.
• Email: near the top, before the first affiliate recommendation appears.

4. Consistency across content types

If you're repurposing one campaign across a blog post, a YouTube video, and an email sequence, each version needs its own disclosure — you can't rely on one placed elsewhere in your funnel to cover the others.

5. AI-generated content is not exempt

If you use AI to draft product reviews or comparison content that includes affiliate links, the disclosure obligation follows the financial relationship, not who or what wrote the copy. Treat AI-assisted content exactly the same as anything you wrote by hand.

Why this matters beyond avoiding fines

The statutory maximum under FTC Act Section 5 is up to $51,744 per violation, per day — and the FTC has sent warning letters to brands over their affiliates' non-disclosure, not just the affiliates themselves. But there's also a research finding worth knowing: disclosed affiliate content has been shown to get higher engagement than undisclosed content, not lower. Transparency isn't purely a compliance cost — it's also a trust signal that measurably helps.

If you want to check specific content against these rules before publishing, our Compliance Checker runs an instant AI audit and flags exactly what's missing.

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