Advertising disclosure standards

If a creator received money, commission, free product, a discount, travel, or any other benefit connected to a post, the audience is told in the post itself. That applies to affiliate links, TikTok Shop commission, gifted samples, whitelisting, Spark Ads, LIVE selling and long-term ambassador deals. No exceptions, no "just this once", regardless of what a seller prefers.

• Up front, not buried: visible before or as the product is introduced, not at the end of a caption or behind 'more'.
• In the language of the audience — Norwegian for a Norwegian audience, German for a German one, not English by default.
• In plain words: 'paid partnership', 'ad', 'advertisement', 'commission', 'I earn a commission on this link'. Ambiguous tags like #sp, #collab, #ambassador or 'thanks to' are not sufficient on their own.
• Readable: adequate contrast, on screen long enough to read, and spoken out loud in LIVE and in longer video where practical.
• Repeated in LIVE: disclosed at the start and at reasonable intervals, because viewers join mid-stream.
• Platform tooling used as well as text: TikTok's branded content toggle or paid-partnership label where the collaboration qualifies, in addition to an in-video or in-caption statement.

EU / EEA. The Unfair Commercial Practices Directive treats hidden advertising and fake or incentivised reviews as misleading practice, and national consumer authorities enforce it — in Norway, the Marketing Control Act and the Norwegian Consumer Authority, including the requirement to label retouched or manipulated body imagery in advertising. The DSA adds platform-level obligations to identify commercial communications.

United Kingdom. The CAP Code and the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations require ads to be obviously identifiable; the ASA expects a clear label such as "Ad" at the start, and the CMA has acted specifically on undisclosed influencer posts.

United States. The FTC Endorsement Guides require clear and conspicuous disclosure of any material connection, in the post itself, plus honest opinions and substantiated claims. Tools, sweepstakes and reviews are covered too, and the FTC's rule on fake and paid reviews applies to incentivised reviews.

This is our operating summary, not legal advice. Sellers remain responsible for their own regulatory position, and we recommend legal review for regulated categories.

• Health, medical, weight-loss or curative claims without approved substantiation, and never for a general-purpose consumer product.
• Unsubstantiated performance claims — 'clinically proven', 'best in Europe', numeric results — unless the seller supplies evidence we can point to.
• Fake scarcity, invented countdowns, or 'last chance' pricing that does not end.
• Fake or scripted testimonials, or asking a creator to claim long-term use of a product they just received.
• Comparative attacks on named competitors without evidence.
• Before-and-after imagery that misrepresents typical outcomes.

Clipmerce earns fees from sellers for the services described on this site, and in some engagements a performance fee based on attributable GMV. This site contains no affiliate links to consumer products and no paid product placements. If that ever changes, this page will say so before the link goes live.

Disclosure requirements are written into every creator brief and every seller scope. Disclosure is checked at content review before publication, and again in reporting. A missing or unclear disclosure is treated as a delivery failure: the post is corrected or removed. A repeat pattern of hidden advertising ends the partnership — on either side. Report a concern to hello@clipmerce.co and we will look at it.