Posts Tagged paid sponsorships

As I expected after I posted last week about “New FTC Regulations Impact Review Sites,” I have been getting questions about what affiliates need to do to comply with the new FTC regulations.

There is no shortage of Tweets, blog posts, forum posts, or other commentary on the subject, but I did want to address what you need to do.

First, don’t panic.  It is MY opinion (and my opinion only) that this is not that big of a deal.  It is not armageddon for affiliates.  It can actually be a good thing for you…see #2 below.

Second, compliance is pretty simple.

So what do you need to do?

1. Read the FTC’s report - it’s 81 pages long, but you need to read it.
2. Write a disclosure page.  DisclosureReport.org is a good place to use for making a simple one.  It is the lazy affiliate’s way to make a disclosure and I don’t really recommend it.  What I do recommend is using your disclosure statement as a selling point, while, of course, complying with the rules.  Be confident in writing your disclosure.  There is nothing to be ashamed of.  Copyblogger has some great tips for doing this in this post.
3. Put this disclosure on your site and link to it from every page.

So far, as I can tell, that is just about it.  Yeah, it is that simple.

I will be posting more on this as I learn more.  Feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts as well