Advertising law · The FTC endorsement rules
When does a post need #ad?
What counts as being paid, when your audience has to be told, and what counts as telling them.
You post about products all the time. Some of those posts are just you talking. Others are, in the eyes of the Federal Trade Commission — the U.S. agency that polices deceptive advertising — ads. The FTC’s job is stopping ads that don’t look like ads, and its rules come down to two duties: say when a brand is behind a post, and say it so people notice.
The catch: “a brand is behind it” covers far more than a paycheck.
Ahead: a queue of nine posts and situations from a few fictional creators. You rule on each. Start cold — call the first before anything has been taught.
What you’re getting
Why this is worth 25 minutes
The rules here come from the FTC’s Endorsement Guides — 16 CFR Part 255, last revised in July 2023 — plus the FTC staff’s guidance for influencers. The Guides are technically guidance rather than a statute, but they spell out what the FTC treats as deceptive under Section 5 of the FTC Act, and Section 5 is the law enforcement runs on. Breaking them starts with warning letters; a creator who keeps posting undisclosed ads after a formal warning risks civil penalties of up to $53,088 per violation (the 2025 figure, unchanged for 2026). Most enforcement lands on the brands — but endorsers who ignore warnings get named too.
Three sections, each one decision: §1 — was there a connection the audience should know about? §2 — does this particular post have to say so? §3 — does the disclosure it carries actually work? Then a closed-book final: twelve calls and one written answer. By the end, the post you were about to publish is something you can clear yourself.
§1 · Your queue, posts 2–3
Was that a connection?
The rule the commit turned on is called a material connection — any relationship with a brand that might change how much weight a reader gives your recommendation, once they know about it. “Material” is the law’s word for “big enough to matter,” and in the rule’s own vocabulary you are the “endorser” — the person doing the recommending. Cash is the obvious case. But the Guides go out of their way to say cash is not required:
The definition that decides post 1
As revised July 26, 2023 — in force today.
Material connections can include a business, family, or personal relationship. They can include monetary payment or the provision of free or discounted products (including products unrelated to the endorsed product) to an endorser, regardless of whether the advertiser requires an endorsement in return.
That last clause is what decided Jules’s shoes. Nobody asked her to post. It doesn’t matter — the free product alone is the connection.
So the checklist for “do I have a connection?” runs wider than you might expect: money for a post · free or discounted products, even unrequested · a commission or affiliate cut on sales · perks like trips, event tickets, or early access · a job at the company · a family member or close friend behind the brand. Any of these counts.
And the clean cases on the other side: you bought it yourself and the brand has never given you anything — no connection, and you don’t have to announce that you have none. A store handing free samples to every customer in line hasn’t singled you out — that’s a promotion aimed at the public, not a relationship with you.
§2 · Your queue, posts 4–6
Does the audience have to be told?
A connection alone doesn’t force a disclosure. The duty needs three things at once: you’re endorsing — saying or showing something positive about a product, which includes tags, likes, pins, and reposts, not just written praise · you have a material connection to that brand · and your audience wouldn’t already expect the connection. That last question is why a film star’s TV commercial needs no disclosure — everyone knows commercial actors are paid — while the same star praising the same product on their own feed does. (The TV pass covers only the compensation everyone assumes. A connection viewers wouldn’t guess at — the actor owning a stake in the company, say — must be disclosed even on TV.) A feed reads as personal opinion, and the regulation says the duty triggers when a significant minority of the audience wouldn’t understand the connection. Not most of your followers. A significant minority.
The three questions
Run any post through this
Post 4: Jules’s paid partner Solstice sent this month’s leggings, plus her usual fee, for the post below.
This diagram answers whether a disclosure is due. Whether the disclosure you then write is good enough is §3’s question — and separate rules about honesty and provable claims apply to the post either way.
Two more rules of timing. First, the duty is per post, not per relationship: every new endorsement without a disclosure can deceive, because any given viewer may be seeing you for the first time — and if a post can reach non-followers, their expectations count too. Second, connections fade. A $60 game you were given a year ago and still stream? Your audience likely no longer cares, and FTC staff say as much. A free $50,000 car posted about over the life of the car? Still material. Scale and recency decide it. The same logic covers the freebie you now buy with your own money — once the brand’s last gift is far behind you, viewers likely wouldn’t weigh it. One boundary: the fade is for relationships that ended. A brand that still sponsors you must be disclosed even in posts about its products you bought yourself.
Your queue · Post 5 of 9 Your queue · Item 6 of 9 · a group-chat argument§3 · Your queue, posts 7–9
Does the disclosure pass?
Writing a disclosure is not the duty. Writing one people will see and understand is. The 2023 revision pinned down what that means:
“Clear and conspicuous”
“Clear and conspicuous” means that a disclosure is difficult to miss (i.e., easily noticeable) and easily understandable by ordinary consumers… In any communication using an interactive electronic medium, such as social media or the internet, the disclosure should be unavoidable.
Two separate hurdles. Placement decides whether people see it. Wording decides whether they understand it. A disclosure can fail on either alone.
Placement. The disclosure lives with the endorsement itself. The FTC staff’s list of places it will be missed: your profile or About page, the comments, anything below the “more” fold — the point where a long caption cuts off until tapped — the tail of a long caption, and — their words — mixed into “a group of hashtags or links.” The front of the caption is the safe ground.
Wording. Plain words that name the deal. The staff guidance blesses ad, advertisement, sponsored, “Thanks [brand] for the free product,” “Gifted by [brand],” and brand-naming forms like #SolsticePartner. It rejects the abbreviations creators actually use — #sp, #spon, #collab — and any bare thanks, #gifted, #ambassador, or #partner that never names the brand or the deal.
Survives a check
#ad · Ad: · Advertisement — first thing in the caption
Thanks @Veya for the free serum — if the serum is all you got
Gifted by Veya — again, only when a free product is the whole deal
#VeyaPartner · Veya Ambassador — for cramped formats
“Paid link” beside an affiliate link
Fails, and why
#sp · #spon · #collab — readers can’t decode them
Thanks @Veya 💛 — gratitude isn’t a deal disclosure
Gifted · #freeproduct — gifted by whom?
#ambassador · #partner — no brand named
“affiliate link” · a Buy Now button — most readers don’t know it pays you
All from the FTC staff’s Endorsement Guides FAQ (June 2023) and Disclosures 101. A disclosure has to cover everything you received — “Gifted by Veya” under-discloses if Veya also paid you.
Format follows the post. The 2023 revision is explicit: a claim made visually needs a visual disclosure, a claim made in audio needs an audible one, and doing both is safest. In practice — a video endorsement discloses in the video itself, near the start or right where the endorsement begins, not just in the description box, and not where mid-roll ads can cover it. A story superimposes the disclosure on the image, big enough and long enough to read, on a background it doesn’t vanish into. A livestream repeats the disclosure periodically, because most viewers arrive mid-stream. And the disclosure speaks the same language as the endorsement — a Spanish reel disclosed in English fails.
One more habit: platforms’ built-in labels — Instagram’s “Paid partnership with…” and its cousins — are worth switching on, but the FTC staff’s position is blunt: don’t assume the tool is good enough, and remember the responsibility stays with you and the brand, not the platform. Use the label and your own disclosure.
Your queue · Post 7 of 9The disclosure lab
Veya paid @jules.runs for this serum post. The caption is written — only the disclosure is unplaced. Before you touch anything: pick the one placement and the one wording you’d bet clears the rule, then check yourself.
Placement
Wording
A clean disclosure is not the whole law
This lesson covered one duty — disclosing the connection. The same post can still break other rules, and these come up constantly: your endorsement must be your honest opinion, about a product you’ve actually used; you can’t make claims the brand can’t prove — “this serum cures eczema” is your liability too, disclosure or not; a separate 2024 FTC rule bans fake reviews and bought followers and carries civil penalties of its own; platforms layer their own branded-content policies on top; and if your audience reaches outside the U.S., other countries’ regulators have their own versions of all of this. Clearing this lesson clears the disclosure question — treat the rest as open until you’ve checked it.
Closed book
The final
Twelve calls and one written answer, on fresh posts. Reference locks while this is open. Nothing is scored until you submit.
Where you stand
What you can do now
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