Before They Find Out

A friend tells you about a restaurant.

They can't stop talking about it. The food, the service, the little dessert they bring out at the end. So you go. It's good. Not life-changing, but good.

A few weeks later, you find out your friend gets a cut every time someone mentions their name at the door.

Nothing about the food has changed.

Something about your friend has.

You start replaying the conversation. Were they excited about the restaurant, or about the money? Would they have told you if it wasn't any good? What else have they recommended to you?

That's what finding out feels like. It's also what happens when an affiliate marketer doesn't say up front that they earn from a link.

The Money Was Never the Problem

Most people understand that recommendations online can come with a commission. They aren't naive.

What bothers them isn't that you got paid. It's that you didn't say so.

Keeping it quiet turns an ordinary business arrangement into a secret. Once somebody feels you kept a secret, they go back and question everything else you told them.

That's an expensive trade for a few dollars of commission.

It's Also the Rule

There's a practical side to this as well.

In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission expects people to clearly disclose a financial relationship with a brand they recommend. In Canada, the Competition Bureau has its own guidance that says much the same. Plenty of other countries have similar rules.

I'm not a lawyer, and this isn't legal advice. If you aren't sure what applies to you, read the official guidance for where you live and where your audience lives.

The spirit of all of it is simple, though. If you could earn something when a person acts on your recommendation, they should know before they act on it.

How to Say It Without Making It Weird

A lot of people avoid disclosing because they think it makes them sound like a salesperson. It doesn't have to.

Say it close to the recommendation. Not at the bottom of the page, and not hidden behind a “more” button. If somebody has to go looking for it, it hasn't really been said.

Use plain words. “I earn a commission if you buy through this link” says exactly what it means. A vague phrase or a hashtag most people don't recognise doesn't.

In videos, say it out loud as well as in the caption. Not everybody reads the caption.

Say it every time, not once on a disclaimer page somewhere on your site.

And if a company sent you the product for free, say that too.

The Promise Inside the Disclosure

There's a side of this that doesn't get talked about much.

When you tell people you earn from a link, you're also making a quiet promise. You're saying, “I know this could look like I'm only in it for the money, and I'm telling you anyway, because I want you to decide with everything in front of you.”

That puts pressure on you, in a good way. It's much harder to recommend something you don't believe in right after admitting you profit from it.

I've said before that I'd rather tell somebody “this probably isn't for you” than talk them into something they don't need. Disclosure comes from the same place.

The people who were going to buy will still buy. Some of them will buy because you were straight with them.

The people who walk away over an honest disclosure were never going to trust you anyway.

Trust Is the Only Thing You Own

In affiliate marketing, you don't own the product. You don't set the price. You don't control the shipping or the customer service.

What you do own is whether people believe you.

Every recommendation adds to that or takes something away. A hidden commission takes more than most people realise, because it doesn't just cost you one sale. It costs you the next time you tell someone a thing is worth a look.

Tell them before they find out.

They'll find out either way.