What the Endorsement Guides Say an Influencer Has to Disclose

Disclosure Is Not Optional, and "Ad" Is Not the Only Word That Works

The Federal Trade Commission's Endorsement Guides, updated in June 2023, require that any material connection between an endorser and a brand be clearly and conspicuously disclosed — before a consumer encounters the promotional content, not buried beneath it. A material connection includes payment, free products, family relationships, employment, and equity stakes. If a reasonable consumer would not otherwise expect the connection, it must be disclosed.

The 2023 revision — the first substantive update since 2009 — added explicit language on social-media-specific practices that the prior version had addressed only in supplementary staff guidance. It formally extended the guides to cover consumer reviews, virtual influencers, and tags on platforms where a single image can carry multiple embedded brand relationships simultaneously. The Commission also clarified what "clear and conspicuous" means in practice: a disclosure must be hard to miss, not merely present. A hashtag reading #sp or #collab, placed among a dozen others below a caption, does not meet the standard.

On affiliate promotions — arrangements where a creator earns a commission on sales made through a tracked link — the guides treat the commission as a material connection requiring disclosure. The Commission's accompanying business guidance states explicitly that simply saying "I earn a commission" is acceptable, and that the disclosure should appear close to the affiliate link itself, not only in a site-wide disclaimer or bio.

The 2023 update did not create a fixed list of required phrases, but the Commission's published examples treat "Ad," "Paid partnership," and "Sponsored" as unambiguous. Platform-native disclosure tools — such as Instagram's "Paid partnership" label — satisfy the guides only if the label is actually visible without the user expanding the post.

Enforcement under the guides proceeds through warning letters, civil investigative demands, and, where violations are egregious, referral to the Commission for formal action. The guides themselves carry no per-violation fine, but deceptive endorsements can support unfair-or-deceptive-acts claims under Section 5 of the FTC Act, which do.