Compliance
Disclosure rules for affiliate links in the EU and US, in plain language
#ad, #gifted, the FTC and the EU's consumer rules — what you must say, where you must say it, and the small, common mistakes that turn a minor slip into a real problem.
Disclosure is the one part of affiliate marketing that feels like homework — and it's the part that can cost you the most if you get it wrong. The good news: the actual rules are short, sensible, and mostly common sense once someone explains them without the legalese.
The one rule underneath all the others
Every disclosure regime — the FTC in the US, the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive and Digital Services Act in the EU, the ASA and CMA in the UK — comes down to a single principle: if you're being paid or rewarded to talk about something, your audience must know that before they act on it. An affiliate commission counts as being paid. Free product counts. A gifted stay counts. If money or value flows to you, disclose.
United States: the FTC's plain expectations
The FTC doesn't mandate exact words, but its guidance is specific about being clear and hard to miss:
- Be unambiguous. "#ad" or "Paid partnership" works. Vague tags like "#sp", "#collab" or "thanks [brand]" don't clearly signal a paid relationship.
- Put it where people actually see it. Before the "more" fold, not buried at the end of a caption or in a wall of hashtags. In video, say it out loud and show it on screen.
- One disclosure per piece. A single #ad in your bio doesn't cover an individual post. Each post that contains affiliate links needs its own.
The test regulators apply is simple: would an ordinary person, glancing at this, understand you're being paid? If they'd have to hunt for it, it isn't a disclosure.
European Union & UK: same spirit, stricter placement
The EU treats an undisclosed paid recommendation as a misleading commercial practice, and enforcement has been sharpening under the Digital Services Act. In practice the expectations are close to the FTC's, with two emphases: disclosure must be in the local language of the audience, and platform-native labels (Instagram's "Paid partnership", TikTok's "Promotional content" toggle) are strongly preferred because they're consistent and machine-readable. In the UK, the CMA and ASA can name non-compliant creators publicly — reputational cost as much as legal.
The five mistakes we see most
- Disclosing in the bio instead of on each post.
- Burying "#ad" at the end of thirty hashtags.
- Verbal-only disclosure in a video with the sound off by default.
- Assuming "gifted" doesn't need a label — it does.
- Translating the content but not the disclosure for an EU audience.
How Adsectra helps you stay clean
Because every program you run lives in one place, we can keep disclosure guidance unified instead of scattered across separate sets of program terms. Adsectra flags the disclosure requirements attached to each program, gives you copy-ready label wording per region, and monitors for the obvious gaps — so compliance is a checkbox at publish time, not a scramble after a regulator's letter.
The short version
If you're paid or rewarded, say so — clearly, up front, once per post, in the audience's language, using the platform's own label where it exists. That single habit keeps you compliant on both sides of the Atlantic.
Priya Chandran
Heads legal and compliance at Adsectra. Spends her days turning regulator guidance into checklists creators can actually follow.
