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 at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.
Imagine reading a great review of a product that you would want to buy. There are pictures, pros, and cons, and the information is helpful for you to decide to buy that product. Would you like to know that the author of the review will receive a commission if you buy the product? Would that affect your thoughts about the glowing review?
Enter the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) Endorsement Guides. These guidelines require bloggers to disclose affiliate links in their posts so that the readers would know that the blogger will receive a commission if a reader makes a purchase.
If a blogger doesn’t disclose to their audience that he is getting commission / free product sample / any other kind of reward in exchange for the promotion of a product, it is considered a deception.

Affiliate disclosure statement
An affiliate disclosure statement is something that you may have seen on a lot of blogs and never given much thought to it. However, if you are blogging in a serious way, you will understand that the practice of disclosing your relationship with the product that you promote ensures fair business practices. All fellow bloggers must disclose their affiliate relationships as well, and all of your audience can make informed decisions about future purchases.
If you want to start making money blogging, but you’re tired of trying to figure it all out on your own and you’re ready to conquer Affiliate Marketing (once and for all), check out this affiliate marketing training bundle.
After you have written a post and included some affiliate products, take into consideration these rules on how to add affiliate link disclosure correctly.
Frequent
Disclosure statements must be placed on any post on a blog or in social media, where a product is promoted, from which the blogger will get compensation. So if you recommend an online course on your blog to your readers, a disclosure statement must be on a page. And if you share a pin on Pinterest that leads to a product with your affiliate link, at least #ad should be added to the description.
Clear
It must be immediately clear that you may receive compensation for your review or rating. You should write in simple terms that are understandable to your audience.
Conspicuous
The disclosure must be placed in a way that is easy to see, preferably at the top of the page. The text size should be at least the same as the main text of the page. The color should be contrasting with the background so that it would be easy to read.
Require no action
You should not hide the disclosure behind a link. Your audience shouldn’t have to make an extra click to see that you will receive a commission if they buy a product recommended by you.

Affiliate link disclosure examples
You can easily find an affiliate disclosure example of my statement at the top of this post.
And here are some affiliate disclosure statements from other bloggers. Not all of them are ideal and correspond to FTC guidelines, but these may be an inspiration to you when you create your disclosure statement:
- We are a professional review site that receives compensation from the companies whose products we review. We test each product thoroughly and give high marks to only the very best. We are independently owned and the opinions expressed here are our own.
- This post contains affiliate links, to find out more information, please read my disclaimer (link to a disclaimer page).
- Please note that this post contains affiliate links and any sales made through such links will reward me a small commission – at no extra cost to you. That’s just the beauty of affiliate marketing that I’m going to discuss in more depth below!
- This post contains affiliate links. See the affiliate disclaimer here (link).
- THIS POST MAY CONTAIN AFFILIATE LINKS. PLEASE READ MY DISCLOSURE (link) FOR MORE INFO.
You can use an affiliate disclosure generator to write a separate disclosure page that can be linked from each blog post.
Amazon affiliate disclosure
If you use affiliate links from Amazon on your blog, you need to be quite specific with the affiliate disclosure. Here is an example that you can use:
[Insert your name] is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.
You need to identify yourself as an Amazon Associate, that’s why the statement is so specific.
How to add affiliate link disclaimer to all your WordPress blog posts automatically
A few days ago I got a scary e-mail reminder from one of the companies whose products I have promoted on my blog. It said that there absolutely must be a disclosure statement on each post where I have added an affiliate link. And I really didn’t want to go through all of my old posts to check, if I had done it.
So I searched for an automatic solution. There is a WordPress affiliate disclosure plugin, which adds affiliate disclosure statements automatically to all of the posts in a blog.
Do all of my posts have affiliate links in them? Probably not. But I don’t want to risk it in case I forget to add the statement in a post which actually contains an affiliate link.
Here are the steps to installing the affiliate disclaimer plugin:
- Click on Plugins -> Add new in your WordPress navigation.

2. Search for “FMTC Affiliate Disclosure” and install it. After installation, activate the plugin.

3. After the plugin is activated, find it in the Menu.

4. In the opened page of settings write your own affiliate disclosure statement and save changes.

Congratulations! Now you have an affiliate disclosure statement on all of your posts. It is visible clearly both on desktop and mobile devices. And it is formatted according to your blog theme.
I earned $7.60 on my first affiliate sale on Pinterest. Since then I’ve earned around $120 more without putting in any additional effort. If you want to make money by selling products on your blog, check out this affiliate marketing training to make your first affiliate sale.
How to disclose affiliate links on social media
You have to disclose affiliate links and any other commercial relationship to the product/service you are posting about on social media as well. Generally, you can do it by adding a tag #ad or #sponsored in a clearly visible way in the post.
Here is more detailed instruction on how to disclose affiliate links on social media.
Your turn
What other routine formalities of blogging would you like to automate? Which are your favorite WordPress plugins?
I usually just put the affiliate link disclaimer in the bottom (footer) of my websites. I find them so ugly-looking that I want to hide them as far down as is cybernetically possible.
Mine looks like the following:
THE OWNER OF THIS WEBSITE, IS A PARTICIPANT IN THE AMAZON SERVICES LLC ASSOCIATES PROGRAM, AN AFFILIATE ADVERTISING PROGRAM DESIGNED TO PROVIDE A MEANS FOR SITES TO EARN ADVERTISING FEES BY ADVERTISING AND LINKING STETHOSCOPE PROS TO AMAZON PROPERTIES INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, AMAZON.COM, ENDLESS.COM, MYHABIT.COM, SMALLPARTS.COM, OR AMAZONWIRELESS.COM.
So far it seems to work just fine. Amazon just wants you to show it on your site but there aren’t really any guidelines as how to implement that the best way.
Thank you for this post! It was very helpful. I was able to set up my disclosure with ease. I appreciate your content. Keep up the great work!
If you read the FTC guideline, putting it at the bottom of the link will likely not be compliant.
You see so many blogs breaching the FTC rules. That bugs me. Some don’t even have a disclosure at all. You can’t put the disclosure just at the bottom or sidebar. It MUST be before the affiliate link. The next Google update may ban non-compliant websites. If you make a full-time income from blogging, your site will take a hit for non-compliance and you will lose your income. It takes a very long time to get back into Google’s good graces, so follow the law. FTC disclosure must be at the top of every blog post!!!
I don’t want to be non-compliant. Thank you for sharing these additional details for this information with clarity. -blessings
But why you would you tell people that if they click on your links, you receive a commission for whatever a visitor clicks and purchased!. Doesn’t that sound very awkward?. It’s like forcing someone to buy even if they decide not too!. I see this to be weird!. Well I don’t know the reason behind this, I need a deep explanation.
Great post, Una! Love how simply you put it all. Affiliate disclosures can be so scary when you’re just starting out with Affiliate Marketing, but when it comes to applying them, it can be quite simple.
And adding a plugin to take off this task off your to-do list for every blog post is such a great idea!!
Either way, awesome blog post. I’ve been really enjoying your content!
Hugs,
Ana – Blogging Growth Strategist & Coach
http://www.thesheapproach.com
You rock! Thank you so much for this information. I’ve been trying to figure out how to disclose properly for a while and this plugin is seriously the best.
Thank you so much! There were much more complicated ways, but that was so easy, and it worked!
what is the Disclose Affiliate Links used for?
For many products online you can get a unique affiliate link. You may earn a small commission from any person who buys that product by clicking on your link. When you share such links on your blog, you have to tell your readers, that the links may result in you receiving a reward.
Thank you so much for this post! I’m new to blogging so I had no idea how important disclaimer and privacy policy was! This was really helpful!
Hi Una, thank you so much I’ve been skeptical about this but I guess it’s time I go pro.
Hey! I was looking at the FMTC Affiliate Disclosure, but it says it hasn’t been updated in over 2 years and that it is “untested” with my version of WordPress. Have you had any troubles since installing it? Thanks for the info!
Hi! I haven’t had any problems with this plug-in. 🙂
I just tried installing this and “settings” are not available. That means you can no longer edit the statement which makes this plugin useless to me. Am I missing something?
Yeah, it seems that the setting link doesn’t work anymore. However, you can access settings from another place. Go to the WordPress menu -> Settings -> Affiliate Disclosure. I’ll update this post accordingly.
Thanks for your informational post! I was able to add in my disclosure on each post with this plugin, but now when it shows my related posts at the bottom of my blog, it shows the disclosure as the snippet being shown. Do you know how to change this?
Hi, for me it sounds like the fault of the related post plugin. I don’t know exactly how to fix that, but I see several options that could be tried.
1. You could check, if there is an option for your related post plugin to not show the snippet.
2. You could write in the related post plug-ins support page about the issue.
3. You could try to find some other plugin to show the related posts.
4. You could try some other plugin for disclosures, maybe there is a plugin that works better with your related post plugin.
Thank you for the info! I used it and it worked! I was trying to put the disclaimer in each post at the beginning, but then it would show up in the blog excerpt.
Thanks much!
This has been a great help. I was able to use your recommendation and instructions to add disclosures to my posts now. That was super easy!!
This worked perfectly. Thanks.
Thank you! At the moment my affiliate disclosure is on my sidebar so you can see it on every page no matter what. I have been looking for a way to add it to every post so that I can get it off my sidebar. My Amazon disclosure is in my disclosure page as well as on my side bar too. I may keep my Amazon disclosure in the sidebar even after adding this to all my posts. Amazon requires specific wording and I am not sure if it can just be added in another page with a link.
If I disclose a simple affiliation in general in every post with a link to the disclosure, maybe I can put my specific Amazon disclosure in my footer (along with in my disclosure.)
Woohoo! I loved this post! As a fresh/new blogger (like literally as of this week) this was a fabulously helpful post! A tip for others – maybe it was just me, I don’t know – I had to go back to all of my previous posts and hit update in order for them to have my disclosure written! Thanks for the tips, Una!
Thanks so much for this!! I will try the plugin, I didn’t know I can automate the process of adding an affiliate disclosure to my posts.
This was such a great find! thanks for posting! we’re a VERY new blog and i didnt even think about this yet! im glad i did this, we’ll never have to think about it again! (hopefully ) haha!
Searched hours to see if there was a plugin. Thanks so much!
Hi,
Great article and very helpful. I have a quick question though: how did you insert a link to your disclosure page within the plug-in? I tried to embed the link in the word “disclosure” but it didn’t work. Any tips?
Thanks!
Dawn
Hey Dawn,
The link is embedded using HTML code:
<(remove this)a href="https://wandernity.com/about_wandernity/disclosures/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">affiliate links<(remove this)/a>
Just delete (remove this) and replace with your link.
If you read the FTC guideline, putting it at the bottom of the link will likely not be compliant.
Recently i added it on my sidebar, but someone say you should add it in Header, i want to know the plugin you recommended, can we change its location, so i can place it in header.
the amazing article you write about affiliate disclosure. I learn a lot of things from here.
Good stuff, I was really tired of trying to remember to add this manually every time. Thanks!
It’s very interesting article!