How to Incorporate an Affiliate Marketing Strategy Into Your Business… Legally.
Guest Blog post by Jaime Bell
Business lawyer, entrepreneur, and founder of the Contracts Market, Jaime Bell was kind enough to share her expertise in this guest blog post all about affiliate marketing. The Contracts Market is a one-stop-shop for affordable and customizable contract templates designed specifically for entrepreneurs.
I personally use Jaime’s easy-to-use contracts in my own business and, while we’re on the subject of affiliate marketing, I am proud to recommend her products. I’ve included my affiliate link in this post and, should you choose to click through and make a purchase, I may make a small commission at no cost to you.
Do you want to make more money online by simply sharing what you love? Sounds like a dream, right?! Well, say hello to your dream come true, because with an affiliate marketing strategy, you can share your favourite products and services with your community and earn additional income.
Affiliate marketing is blowing up the online space and has become a lucrative way to partner with companies and earn money by sharing what you love. Plus, there are so many ways to promote as an affiliate, such as through your blog posts, podcast, resources, online courses, email list, and social media.
Incorporating affiliate marketing into your business can be a great strategy to expand your reach and create multiple streams of income. However, you definitely want to make sure that you’re doing so legally and putting the right affiliate marketing and influencer contracts in place. Read on to learn more about how to incorporate an affiliate marketing strategy into your business the legal way.
Legal Considerations for Affiliate Marketing
As an affiliate, you are technically considered to be working as an influencer. Therefore, it’s important that you understand the influencer disclosure requirements.
Influencer Disclosure Requirements
As an influencer, you must sign an influencer contract that sets out the terms of the agreement. You must also verify that the services you provide comply with the following legislation and guidelines:
Competition Bureau of Canada influencer marketing guidelines
Ad Standards Canada Influencer Marketing Disclosure Guidelines
United States Federal Trade Commission’s Guides Concerning Endorsements and Testimonials
It is the influencer’s sole responsibility to ensure that all of the services and content they provide complies with the legislation and guidelines above.
For clarity, some important points to note from the laws and guidelines above (don’t skip reading the guidelines though, as this clarity doesn’t replace your review and understanding of them) are that the influencer must understand and agree to the following clauses.
Honesty of Influencer Experience
All content that is posted by the influencer in carrying out the services in the influencer contract must be clear, true, and should not be misleading.
All posts, blogs, publications, testimonials, and endorsements by the influencer must reflect the genuine and reasonably current personal opinion of the influencer, be based on adequate information or experience of the product or service, and be reflective of their actual use and, if implied, continued use of the product or service.
Put simply, the influencer must share their honest review and current experience using the product or service. Promoting a product or service that they’re not actively using, haven’t used recently, or don’t truly love goes against this part of the influencer contract.
Disclosure of Material Connection
All posts, blogs, publications, testimonials, and endorsements must disclose any material connection between the influencer and the company, including any payment, receipt of free products or services, or any combination of payment and free products or services.
If you’re an affiliate for a company that pays out a commission for sales made through your affiliate marketing services or sends you free products or services, you have to disclose that in your marketing efforts.
Disclosure Language
In general, the influencer must include disclosure language in all posts, blogs, publications, testimonials, and endorsements. This disclosure language must clearly indicate that there is a material connection between the influencer and the company and what the nature of that connection is.
The influencer must use at least one of the following terms in all posts, blogs or publications:
“Paid ad” or #Paid.
“Ad” or #Ad.
“Sponsored” or #Sponsored.
“[COMPANY NAME] gave me this [PRODUCT NAME] to try.”
Ambiguous language must not be used to disclose a material connection, including terms such as “Ambassador,” “Thanks,” “Collab,” or “Spon.”
As a good rule of thumb, when sharing a product or service that you’re an affiliate for, tell your audience that you’re an affiliate and that you may make a small commission or receive free products/services from the company in exchange for sharing, but at no cost to them. Transparency is always best as an affiliate.
Placement of Disclosure
When sharing the disclosure of the material connection you have with a company, it must be:
Clear - It’s easy to determine that there is a material connection between the influencer and the company.
Prominent - For example, the disclosure must be included in posts or tweets, near the top of a social media post, in a video endorsing a product, or “above the break” in a blog post.
Made in close proximity to the claim(s) to which it relates - The disclosure is clearly and conspicuously, i.e., separated from other text, in a font that is easy to read and clear enough to be noticed and read. The disclosure cannot be buried in the post or in the comments.
As an affiliate, don’t try to hide the fact that you’re an affiliate. Use straightforward, honest language and put the text where your audience can clearly see it. They’ll appreciate your honesty and won’t quit reading just because you included a small blurb about your relationship as an affiliate marketer.
Incorporating an affiliate marketing strategy into your business (legally!) is a great way to spice up your content and make more income by simply sharing the products and services that you love. In turn, this builds know, like, and trust with your audience and helps more of your ideal customers find YOU.
If you need help marketing with social media, click here to check out my favorite social media marketing tools and services! These tools can help you with your own business marketing as well as your affiliate marketing. That’s a #doublemarketingwin!
Enjoyed this post? Check out Jaime’s guest episodes on the Showing Up Solo Podcast:
Episode 49 | How To Integrate Affiliate Marketing Into Your Strategy Legally with Jaime Bell
Episode 25: Email Marketing Legally And Why You Need A Privacy Policy with guest expert Jaime Bell
