Put the affiliate disclosure in the email you paid to send

Answer If you earn a commission from the link in a solo ad, say so in that email, where the reader can see it next to the recommendation. The FTC's endorsement FAQ tells affiliates to make the relationship clear. A disclosure on yesterday's email does not cover today's.

The note that started this: FTC's Endorsement Guides: What People Are Asking, Federal Trade Commission.

The page that started this is the FTC's own FAQ on the Endorsement Guides. Staff there say the FAQ is guidance, that context decides whether a disclosure is enough, and that the guidance does not provide a safe harbor. Whether a particular claim violates the FTC Act depends on the facts. Write the disclosure so a tired person on a phone can see it. Then keep the claims on the page true anyway.

The Guides were revised in 2023. The FAQ points you at that revision, including a definition of "clearly and conspicuously," and at two shorter documents, Disclosures 101 for Social Media Influencers and the guide on soliciting and paying for online reviews. The section you want for a solo ad is the one headed affiliate or network marketing.

Where does an affiliate disclosure go in a solo ad?

The FTC's endorsement FAQ says to disclose the relationship clearly and conspicuously, and that the closer the disclosure sits to the recommendation, the better.

An endorsement, in the Guides' sense, is an advertising message people are likely to believe reflects someone other than the sponsoring advertiser. A solo email that says "this is the tool I use" is that message when the sender, or the buyer who wrote the swipe, gets paid if the reader acts. The reader on a seller's list often thinks they are hearing from the seller. Sometimes they are. Sometimes they are hearing from a renter. The relationship that would change how much weight they give the letter has to be visible.

The FAQ's placement rule is physical. If the review and the link are on screen together and the disclosure is in that review, one disclosure can be enough. If the disclosure and the link are separated, the reader may never connect them. In an email, separated means the legal sentence is under three other offers, in a gray footer, in type that loses to the background. Put one short sentence above the link, in the same size as the letter. Then you may also keep a line in the footer. The footer alone is how letters get cute and complaints get real.

The FAQ also says an act or practice can be deceptive if it misleads a significant minority of consumers. You do not get to poll the list and decide the clever ones will understand. Write for the person who will not decode a winking hashtag.

What wording does the FTC give affiliates as an example?

On the affiliate question, the FAQ says you could write something like, I get commissions for purchases made through links in this post.

That sentence is a gift. Use it, or a plainer cousin that names the money. "I earn a commission if you buy through this link." "This mail includes a paid link." The FAQ says "paid link," right next to the affiliate link, should be an adequate disclosure of the nature of the link. Adequate is doing a lot of work. Next to the link means next to the link.

A personalized coupon code is a weaker tell. The FAQ says a code that obviously belongs to the endorser, like a handle plus a percent off, probably shows a relationship, and may fail to show a financial one. If a significant minority would miss the money, disclose the money in words. On a solo ad, skip the puzzle. The reader did not come to solve you.

Match the claim to the experience. The FAQ says there is no blanket ban on a brand handing an endorser a picture or a pre-written post. The ban-shaped problem is a post that implies a use or a result the person did not have. If you hand a solo seller a swipe, the seller is about to speak it in their voice to their list. Either the swipe is true in that seller's mouth, or you rewrite it until it is true as a paid placement. "They paid to tell you about this, and here is the offer" is a sturdy frame. "I personally doubled my income with this on Tuesday" is a sturdy way to get everyone in the chain in trouble when it is fiction.

Does one disclosure on a previous email cover the next send?

The FAQ says each new endorsement made without a disclosure could be deceptive, because viewers might not have seen the prior posts.

This kills the "we disclosed in the welcome sequence" excuse. The person who joined in 2024 may have seen it. The person opening today's solo did not open that old mail, or was not on the list yet. Each send carries its own sentence. The FAQ makes the same point about a year-long brand contract: eight earlier disclosures do not cover the ninth post.

If you sell the solo, this lands on you too. You control the send. A buyer can hand you a swipe with the disclosure stripped "for deliverability," which is a sentence people use when they mean "for the open." Put the sentence back. Your from-name is the one the list trusts. An FTC staff page aimed at intermediaries says a company that pays and directs endorsers can be liable when the endorsements skip a material connection, and that you need a reasonable way to train and check. A solo desk is small. The reasonable way is reading the email before it goes.

The FAQ's network-marketing answer is the cousin of that duty. If you pass a product to people who then talk about it, you tell them to disclose the free product, you tell the advertiser to remind them, and you check. A solo buyer who earns when your reader buys is inside that family, even when nobody shipped a box.

What do you put in the quote about the words?

The quote should say you will send the approved email only if the disclosure sits next to the paid link and the claims match the page.

Buyers shopping solo ads for affiliate marketing sometimes want the disclosure small because they are afraid of the click. The click you lose to an honest sentence is cheaper than the complaint, the refund, and the list that stops opening you. Sellers who want a calmer book of business can make the sentence a house style, the way a return address is a house style. Same words every time, in the same place, so the list learns what a paid letter looks like and does not feel tricked when one shows up.

Then keep the rest of the letter inside what you can prove. The Endorsement Guides, as the FAQ's opener explains, already expect extraordinary result claims to come with the result people can generally expect. A solo ad is a short letter. It has room for one true thing and one link. Spend the room on those. Leave the miracle for the people who can document it, on a page that shows the documentation.

Before you pay, or before you hit send, read the email on a phone. If you cannot see the commission sentence without hunting, it is in the wrong place. Move it. That is the whole compliance trick that fits in a Sunday afternoon, and it is the one the FAQ keeps repeating.