Table of Contents
Introduction
Affiliate Disclosure: Are you a blogger who wants to join an affiliate marketing program? It’s a great technique to earn extra money by promoting relevant products to your user base. But before you get started with paid promotions, there’s one crucial thing you need to know affiliate disclosures.
Suppose you don’t properly disclose that your promotions are paid ads. In that case, you could end up in trouble with your affiliate program or even with the Federal Trade Commission (an independent agency of the United States government), which could mean hefty fines for you or others.
What are Affiliate Disclosures, and why do you need them?
Bloggers and content creators have a lot of power over their users, and your suggestions can significantly influence what they buy. How often have you gone with the endorsement of someone you trust or seen something on a video and wanted to buy it for yourself?
That’s why the FTC has guidelines on online disclosures to keep product endorsements transparent and distinguish between paid product placements and incentives.
Affiliate advertising is simply a short notice near a product placement that explains what affiliate marketing is and that you get paid for making this recommendation.
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How to Write an Affiliate Disclosure?
Affiliate disclosures can be written pretty much any way you want, as long as it does two things:
- Identifies a link as an affiliate link.
- Explains what it is and what it does for you.
That can be as detail as a full explanation of what affiliate programs entail and why you choose to income these partnerships or as brief as a one-sentence note identifying the link and proverb you get paid when they click on it.
Membership Disclosure Format
However, you will need to consider the official guidelines, especially regarding the format. The disclosure of any link leading to it must can visible and not be hidden on the page with very light color or tiny and unreadable text.
Membership Disclosure Guidelines
1. Make it easy to understand
Affiliate disclosures must be written so that they can easily understood. Being too long, using language that is difficult to understand, or writing the disclosure in language that your target audience cannot read are all unacceptable.
Use clear and straightforward language. If your disclosure is extend, break it into paragraphs and make sure it’s easy to read (and free of grammatical errors and typos ).
2. Don’t make assumptions
You should also not assume that your target audience knows what affiliate marketing is. It is not enough to say that you use affiliate links on your blog, and it is better to explain how you get a commission when people click on your links.
Where to Put an Affiliate Disclosure?
Proximity is an essential part of the FTC guidelines. It’s not enough to just put your disclosure on a random page and assume everyone will see it.
If you need to stay within the confines of these guidelines, you must ensure that your disclosure is as close to the bond as possible.
For bloggers, there are two suitable places to put your disclosure at the top of the blog post or right overhead the affiliate link. The latter is preferable, but either (or both) will work.
For bloggers, there are two good places to put your disclosure. At the top of the blog post or right overhead the affiliate link. The latter is preferable, but either (or both) will work.
Affiliate Disclosure Examples
As you write your own disclosure, it’s good to make examples and show why they effort fine.
Some examples of good affiliate disclosures from around the web.
Example: Justine Gray
Here’s a great example of a custom disclosure from Justine Grey. Explaining what affiliate links do while adding a bit of personality. A similar notice would also serve at the top of any page that contains an affiliate link.
Example: WP Superstars
WP Superstars uses several approaches, with a full FTC disclosure page that explains their views on affiliate marketing and how it makes them money, plus notices on pages with affiliate links and in your sidebar.
Conclusion
Affiliate advertising is short notice near a product placement explaining what affiliate marketing is, and you get paid for making this recommendation. As long as these strategies are follow, you can write your affiliate disclosures however you like. But remember to check out the official FTC guidelines for yourself. For non-US affiliate programs, please check your country’s specific regulations. Though they probably won’t be too different from what the FTC requires.
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