Where Should I Put the Affiliate Disclosure? Complete Placement Guide

Understanding Affiliate Disclosure Placement Requirements

Affiliate disclosure placement is not just a legal formality—it’s a fundamental aspect of building trust with your audience and maintaining compliance with federal regulations. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has established clear guidelines that require disclosures to be placed in locations where consumers will notice them without having to search extensively. The core principle is that your audience must understand the commercial relationship between you and the brands you’re promoting before they click on any affiliate link. This transparency protects consumers from deceptive marketing practices and ensures that your recommendations are perceived as authentic rather than hidden endorsements.

The placement of your affiliate disclosure directly impacts both your legal standing and your credibility with your audience. When disclosures are buried in footer text, hidden in lengthy terms of service documents, or placed far away from the actual affiliate link, they fail to serve their intended purpose. Research shows that 57% of consumers value transparency as the most important factor when evaluating influencer content, which means proper disclosure placement isn’t just about compliance—it’s about building lasting relationships with your audience. PostAffiliatePro recognizes this importance and provides tools to help you manage and track disclosure placements across all your marketing channels.

The Core Principle: Proximity and Conspicuousness

The FTC’s guidance on affiliate disclosure placement centers on two critical concepts: proximity and conspicuousness. Proximity means your disclosure must be located as close as possible to the affiliate link or product recommendation. Conspicuousness means it must be easy for any reasonable visitor to notice without having to search for it or scroll extensively. These two principles work together to ensure that consumers understand the commercial nature of your content before making purchasing decisions.

When implementing these principles, consider that your audience may be viewing your content on various devices—desktop computers, tablets, and mobile phones. What appears conspicuous on a desktop screen might be hidden below the fold on a mobile device. The FTC specifically addresses this concern by requiring that disclosures on mobile applications be “above the fold,” meaning they must be visible when the page first loads without requiring any scrolling. This is particularly important for affiliate marketers who rely on mobile traffic, as a significant portion of online commerce now occurs on mobile devices.

Blog Posts and Website Placement Strategies

For blog posts and website content, the most effective approach is to place your affiliate disclosure immediately before or after the product recommendation, ideally within the same paragraph or section. Many successful affiliate marketers use bold or italicized text to make the disclosure stand out visually from the surrounding content. For example, you might write: “This post contains affiliate links. If you click through and make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.” This approach ensures that readers encounter the disclosure at the exact moment they’re considering clicking on your affiliate link.

In longer blog posts that contain multiple affiliate links, you should consider placing disclosures near each individual link rather than relying on a single disclosure at the beginning of the post. This is because readers may skip to different sections of your content and might miss a disclosure placed only at the top. Additionally, you can enhance your compliance by including a sitewide disclosure in your website’s footer, header, or sidebar, along with a dedicated affiliate disclosure page that explains your affiliate relationships in detail. However, these sitewide disclosures should supplement, not replace, link-level disclosures placed near individual affiliate links.

PostAffiliatePro’s content management features allow you to track where each affiliate link appears on your website and ensure that corresponding disclosures are properly placed. This is particularly valuable for websites with extensive content libraries, as it helps you maintain consistency across all your affiliate marketing efforts and quickly identify any links that may lack proper disclosure.

Social Media Platform-Specific Guidelines

Social media platforms have their own specific requirements for affiliate disclosure, and these requirements have evolved significantly in 2025. On Instagram and Facebook, you can use Meta’s built-in “Paid Partnership” label, which automatically adds a disclosure to your post. However, this built-in feature should be supplemented with additional disclosure language in your post caption to ensure maximum clarity. The FTC recommends using hashtags like #ad, #sponsored, or #affiliatelink at the beginning of your caption where they’re most visible, rather than burying them among numerous other hashtags at the end.

On TikTok, creators must enable the platform’s disclosure settings when promoting affiliate partnerships. TikTok’s algorithm and community guidelines require that you clearly identify sponsored content, and failure to do so can result in post removal or account penalties. The disclosure should appear in your video description and, ideally, be mentioned verbally or displayed as text overlay within the video itself. YouTube requires creators to check the “Includes paid promotion” box when uploading videos with affiliate links, and you should also include disclosure language in your video description and mention it verbally during the video.

On X (formerly Twitter), where character limits can be restrictive, using #ad or #sponsored at the beginning of your tweet is considered sufficient disclosure. However, if you have space, including a brief statement like “This is an affiliate link” provides additional clarity. The key across all social media platforms is ensuring that your disclosure is immediately visible when someone first encounters your post, not hidden in a thread of comments or buried in a long list of hashtags.

Video Content and Audio Disclosure Requirements

Video content presents unique challenges for affiliate disclosure placement because you must communicate the disclosure through multiple mediums simultaneously. For YouTube videos, the FTC requires that you disclose your affiliate relationship verbally at a point near where the link is displayed or mentioned. This verbal disclosure should be made at the same volume, speed, and cadence as the rest of your presentation—not rushed or mumbled in a way that makes it difficult to understand. Additionally, you should include the disclosure in your video description and consider adding a text overlay at the beginning of the video that remains visible while you’re discussing the affiliate product.

For longer videos exceeding 30 minutes, consider repeating your disclosure at natural breaks in the content, such as when transitioning between topics. This ensures that viewers who skip ahead or join the video partway through still encounter the disclosure. Podcasts and audio-only content require similar treatment, with the disclosure made audibly at the beginning of the episode or at the point where you’re discussing the affiliate product. The disclosure must be clear and easily understood by listeners, avoiding technical jargon or overly complex language.

Global Compliance Considerations for 2025

Affiliate disclosure requirements extend beyond the United States, and if your content reaches international audiences, you must comply with regulations in those jurisdictions. The United Kingdom’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) requires disclosures to be “obviously identifiable” as marketing communications, and they must be clearly separated from editorial content. In the UK, using hashtags like #ad or #advertising is considered sufficient, but terms like #affiliate or #collab have been found to be insufficient for compliance.

The European Union’s Digital Services Act, which became fully applicable in February 2024, has introduced more extensive requirements for affiliate marketing disclosures. Germany requires that promotional content be clearly marked with the German terms “Werbung” (advertising) or “Anzeige” (advertisement), and English abbreviations like “ad” or “sponsored” are generally not sufficient. France requires clear labeling with French terms like “Publicité” or “Collaboration commerciale,” and the disclosure must be within the first three hashtags on social media posts.

Australia’s regulatory framework, enforced by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), requires that affiliate disclosures be “prominent and proximate” to the affiliate link. The ACCC emphasizes that disclosures must be easy to find and not hidden in small print or at the bottom of lengthy captions. If your affiliate marketing reaches audiences in multiple countries, it’s essential to research the specific requirements for each jurisdiction and implement disclosure strategies that comply with the most stringent standards.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

One of the most common mistakes affiliate marketers make is placing disclosures only in their website’s footer or in a separate “Affiliate Disclosure” page linked from the main navigation. While these sitewide disclosures are helpful for transparency, they do not satisfy the FTC’s requirement for link-level disclosures placed in close proximity to each affiliate link. The FTC has explicitly stated that linking to a disclosure page is not sufficient—the disclosure statement itself must appear near the affiliate link.

Another frequent error is using vague or unclear language in disclosures. Phrases like “I may earn a small commission” or “This post is sponsored” can be ambiguous to consumers who may not understand the commercial relationship. Instead, use clear language such as “This post contains affiliate links. If you click through and make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.” This language explicitly explains the relationship and the potential financial benefit to the creator.

Additionally, many affiliate marketers fail to update their disclosures when platform policies change or when they begin working with new affiliate programs. Regular audits of your affiliate content are essential to ensure that all links have appropriate disclosures and that your language complies with current FTC guidelines and platform-specific requirements. PostAffiliatePro’s tracking and reporting features help you maintain an organized system for managing affiliate links and their corresponding disclosures across all your marketing channels.

Best Practices for Maintaining Compliance

To maintain compliance with affiliate disclosure requirements, establish a systematic approach to managing your affiliate content. Create a content audit checklist that includes verifying that every affiliate link has a corresponding disclosure, that the disclosure is placed in close proximity to the link, and that the language is clear and compliant with current regulations. Document where each affiliate link appears on your website or social media channels, along with the corresponding disclosure, so you can quickly identify any gaps in your compliance efforts.

Consider using a content management system or spreadsheet to track your affiliate partnerships, the platforms where you promote them, and the specific disclosure language used for each. This documentation is valuable not only for maintaining compliance but also for demonstrating good faith efforts to comply with FTC regulations if you’re ever audited. Many affiliate programs, including Amazon Associates and eBay Partner Network, conduct regular audits of their partners’ content to ensure compliance, and having organized records of your disclosures can help you quickly address any concerns they raise.

Finally, stay informed about changes to FTC guidelines and platform-specific policies. The regulatory landscape for affiliate marketing continues to evolve, and what was compliant in 2024 may require updates in 2025. Subscribe to updates from the FTC, follow your affiliate program partners’ compliance resources, and regularly review the terms of service for the social media platforms where you promote affiliate links. By staying proactive and maintaining organized systems for managing your affiliate disclosures, you can build a sustainable affiliate marketing business that prioritizes transparency and consumer trust.