Your Legal Requirements as an Affiliate or Influencer

Affiliate marketing (also known as influencer marketing!) is a great way to diversify and add income streams to your business. Affiliate marketing is easy to do if you already love the product or service and use it yourself. If you are already recommending it and telling everyone you like, why not pay them for your loyalty and marketing?

Familiarity is a big reason why people decide to buy, as is the trust factor, and if you have built a loyal community, they will be more likely to trust your recommendation and buy what you recommend.

Even if you don’t think of yourself as an influencer, you might be one after all! But there’s more to influencer and affiliate marketing than just posting on social. There are some important legal requirements for affiliate marketing that you must keep in mind. Read on to find out exactly what these are to stay legal when promoting and sharing your favorites as an affiliate.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is when you partner with a company or brand to promote, recommend, or endorse a product or service. Any business, big or small, can do affiliate marketing.

In an affiliate marketing arrangement, you can pay the affiliate a free product, a commission, or a discount in exchange for promoting or exchanging the affiliate's product or service.

Is affiliate marketing legal?

Yes, of course! Affiliate marketing is 100% legal. However, because affiliates are technically considered influencers, it's important to understand the disclosure requirements for influence.

As long as you know the governing laws and make sure all your posts, promotions, and marketing materials follow the affiliate marketing guidelines, you'll be set up for success.

How to keep affiliate marketing legal

There are a few things to keep in mind to ensure your affiliate marketing meets certain legal requirements. Most of the laws regarding affiliate and influencer marketing are aimed at making sure your community knows you have a significant relationship with the brand you’re promoting or endorsing, and understands that you’re receiving some kind of compensation for your promotion.

In Canada and the US, there are laws that affiliates need to know and follow to avoid getting into legal trouble.

In Canada, the Competition Act dictates advertising and marketing standards. In the US, the Federal Trade Commission’s Guide on Endorsements and Testimonials defines the rules for affiliates and influencers to follow.

For more guidance on Canadian advertising standards, click here. For the FTC’s 101 Disclosures for Social Media Influencers, click here.

Whether you’re in Canada or the US, you should familiarize yourself with the guidelines for each country.

Who has to comply with affiliate marketing and influencer laws?

As an affiliate or influencer, it’s your responsibility (not the brand’s) to make sure your posts are legal (though brands could get themselves into trouble) and that you’re not misleading the community.

Ignorance of affiliate marketing legal requirements is no excuse! Anyone who receives compensation for sharing affiliate links or promo codes or promoting other people's products or services must disclose their relationship as a Brand Partner.

This compensation can be a gift of product, money as a commission, or discounts or free services.

Whether your business is large or small, how many products you promote, or whether you receive compensation, you must disclose that you are acting as an affiliate.

In performing the services agreed upon in the Influencer Agreement, the veracity of the affiliate experience in all content posted by the affiliate must be clear, truthful, and not misleading. For example, you cannot promote a product or service that you have never used!

All affiliate publications, blogs, posts, testimonials, and endorsements must (i) reflect the affiliate's actual and reasonably current personal opinion; (ii) be based on sufficient information or experience with the product; and (iii) reflect actual use of the product, and, if implied, ongoing use.

Material connection disclosures in all posts, blogs, publications, testimonials and endorsements must disclose the Affiliate’s material connection to the Company, including (i) any payment, (ii) the receipt of free products or services, or (iii) the combination of payment with free products or services.

Subsidiary Disclosure Language

In general, partners need to include all posts, blogs, publications, testimony, and recommendations. This disclosure shall clearly show that there is an important relationship between affiliates and companies and the nature of the relationship.

Affiliates must use at least one or similar terms of the following affiliate disclosure in all posts, blogs, or publications:

"Paid advertisement" or #paid.

• "Paid advertisement" or #advertising.
• "Sponsor" or "#sponsor".
• I got this [product name] from "Company name] and tried it.
• "Ambassador" (ambassador) "Thank you" (thank you) "Collaboration" (Cooperation), "Spon" (Spon) should not be used to disclose important connections. 。

Such words are not enough. Your hashtag clearly shows that there is a material connection between you and its brand, and it is necessary to clarify that you are receiving some rewards by advertising what you are selling. There is.

Do not fill the hashtag at the bottom of all content. Easy to find and clearly describe. The first way to reach this is to clarify the connection with your partner in the content.

Partner disclosure Placement Affiliate disclosure of important connections with companies should be as follows:

Clea r-It is easy to judge that there is an important connection between affiliates and companies.

• Standin g-for example, the disclosure should be included in videos, IG stories, blog posts, and social media posts, such as "posts, blog posts, and social media posts near the top of posts, tweets, and social media posts. .
• The disclosure is separated from other texts, easy to read, clear and readable to understand and read. The disclosure must not be buried in posts or comments.
• How to disclose that you are an affiliate Your affiliate disclosure means that someone should not look for disclosure, and should be near your affiliate link. In other words, no one needs to find information disclosure. It is not just linked to the affiliate clause of the Terms of Use. This is absolutely possible, but you need to disclose your affiliate relationships near the link in your content.

In other words, in blog posts and e-mails, the best practices are listed on information disclosure on the "above." This means that you can know before you start reading an affiliate link.

An example of an affiliate information disclosure is:

"This blog/ email contains affiliate links. This blog/ email contains affiliate links. If you buy something through our affiliate link or promotion code. Affiliate fees may be obtained.

If you use photos to show information disclosure, you need to repeat the words to the images to make it easier to read if there is no caption that can clarify this affiliate information.

If you are doing live streams, mention the link and you are an affiliate several times so that you can recognize that there is a link even if people only watch a part of the video.

In social media channels, use the ADS ADS option as much as possible. If there is an affiliate link somewhere on the site, post an affiliate disclosure statement on the site.

What happens if you don't disclose affiliate relationships? If a misunderstanding marketing is discovered, it may be subject to criminal penalties or fines. Needless to say, you are more likely to lose the right to advertise a brand! Also, if the influencer or affiliate does not disclose the correct information, the brand may be liable for legal responsibility.

Therefore, if you want to launch an affiliate program or hire an influencer for your own business, you will legally look at the brand guidelines that include the legal requirements of affiliate marketing. It is recommended that you confirm that you are advertising and services. If you are involved in affiliate marketing and influencer marketing, the best rule of thumb is transparent, simple and honest, about the relationship with the brand you are advertising.

Clarify your affiliate disclosure and the disclosure of the affiliate association, make it easier to read and clear. Your community will be more likely to buy through you than to highly evaluate this transparency and act secretly.

Finally, advertise only the brands and products you like, and keep in mind as real and reliable content as possible. Affiliates are all sincerity!

By following these guidelines, you can meet the legal requirements as affiliates and influencers. If you want to start an affiliate program, we have an affiliate program rules that describe all the legal requirements and details of the affiliate program. If you want to hire an influencer and advertise products and services, see the Influence Marketing Regulations. Don't send money or products without a contract!