Affiliate Endorsements And Disclosure

FTC Compliance

The Federal Trade Commission requires that affiliates disclose to their readers when they endorse a product and have a "material connection" to the seller of that product. These rules apply to any online review, article or endorsement that includes our affiliate link and encourages visitors to purchase our product. Disclosures are not required for links that are clearly advertisements (such as banner ads in your blog’s sidebar). By participating in our affiliate program, all affiliates must agree to comply with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR § 255.5, and review and follow the suggestions outlined in their guide on How to Make Effective Disclosures in Digital Advertising. Every time you link to ElegantThemes.com in an article using your affiliate link, you must disclose the nature of your relationship with our company. Furthermore, such disclosures must be made clearly, frequently and conspicuously. Such disclosures ensure that readers can formulate an informed opinion about the information you provide by understanding the possible influence your material connection with our company might have on your endorsement of our products. Those affiliates who do not comply with the FTC guidelines will be subject to account termination and commission reversal.

Affiliate Rules For Appropriate Disclosure

1. Linking In Articles: When using our affiliate link in an article, you must display a clear disclosure about the nature of your affiliate links and the material connection you have with our company. These disclosures must appear on the same page where the links appear, and they must be clear, conspicuous, and require no additional user interaction to read (such as clicking a link, scrolling or hovering over an element). According to the FTC: “Putting disclosures in obscure places – for example, buried on an ABOUT US or GENERAL INFO page, behind a poorly labeled hyperlink or in a terms of service agreement – isn’t good enough. The average person who visits your site must be able to notice your disclosure, read it and understand it.” All disclosures should appear in full, either before or in close proximity to the affiliate link itself.

Example Article Disclosure: "Disclosure: 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."

2. Linking On Social Networks : When using our affiliate links on social networks, you must also display a clear disclosure about the nature of the links and the material connection you have with our company. In the form of social media posts, these disclosures must be part of the post that contains the affiliate link.

Example Facebook/Google+ Disclosure: "Ad: Check out our review of Elegant Themes, and why we think it's the best theme club around."

Example Twitter Disclosure: "Elegant Themes has the best themes in the business! #ad"

Affiliate Rules For Legitimate Endorsements

To put things simply: When you make an endorsement, the endorsement must be truthful. You cannot lie to encourage your visitors to purchase our product, nor can you fabricate evidence or experiences to entire visitors to purchase our product. For a complete and detailed list of rules and guidelines from the FTC, please refer to the FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION 16 CFR Part 255. At the most basic level, you should consider and adhere to the following rules:

• 1. You can’t talk about your experience with a product if you haven’t tried it. Creating a fake positive review of a product for the sole purpose of encouraging visitors to purchase our products is not allowed. Your review of a product must be 100% truthful and legitimate.
• 2. If you were paid to try a product and you thought it was terrible, you can’t say it’s terrific.
• 3. You can’t make claims about a product that would require proof you don’t have. For example, you can't say that our product is "guaranteed to increase your ranking in Google" if there is no evidence to support that claim. You also could not write a fake testimonial or lie about your own experience with our product and the positive benefits you have experience from using the products.

Additional Resources

• 1. Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR § 255.5
• 2. The FTC’s Revised Endorsement Guides: What People are Asking.
• 3. Best Practices: Blogger Disclosure Examples and Tips
• 4. How to Make Effective Disclosures in Digital Advertising