Affiliate Disclosure Requirements

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) and Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) have published guidelines on the rules and regulations that Affiliates should adhere to when earning commission via Affiliate Marketing.

The guidelines require that any affiliate who uses reviews, rankings or testimonials across any digital medium to promote products must clearly disclose the fact that they receive compensation for doing so.

For an in-depth commentary on these rules please visit https://www.asa.org.uk/advice-online/affiliate-marketing.html, we have highlighted the essential parts here:

The advertising rules say that:

• all marketing communications should be obviously identifiable as ads.
• marketing communications must not falsely imply or claim that the marketer is acting as a consumer and must make their commercial intent clear.

In instances were there is an affiliate marketing arrangement in place, you need to make it clear whether parts or all the content is an ad.

Take care with the content

It’s important to remember that, because affiliate marketing falls within the scope of the CAP Code, all of the relevant rules will apply to the content and it therefore should not, amongst other things, mislead materially or cause serious or widespread offence.