FTC Influencer Guidelines for Brands: A Simple 2026 Disclosure Checklist

The FTC influencer guidelines come down to one idea: when a creator has a connection to a brand, the audience should be able to tell. For a brand, three habits cover most campaigns. Ask every creator to switch on the platform’s paid-partnership label and start the caption with “Sponsored” or “Gifted by” the brand, said out loud and shown on screen in video. Paste that wording into every brief and agreement, gifted campaigns included. Then look at each post once it is live and ask the creator to add anything that is missing. This guide is current as of October 2026 and is general information, not legal advice.

Each platform has its own tool. On Instagram, creators use the Paid Partnership label whenever they are paid in any form, gifted product included. On TikTok they switch on the commercial content disclosure toggle, and on YouTube they tick the “includes paid promotion” box. The FTC says a platform’s built-in tool might not be clear enough by itself, so the simple habit is the label plus the words: #ad or “Paid partnership with @brand” at the start of the caption, and a spoken, on-screen mention inside any video. TikTok’s Branded Content Policy also limits some product categories, so read it before you list TikTok in a brief.

The FTC’s standard for a disclosure is clear and conspicuous: easy to notice, placed with the post itself and in the same language as the post. In practice that means the start of the caption, above the “more” cut; spoken and on screen in short video; on the image in Stories; repeated during a livestream; and right next to an affiliate link. Wording that works includes “Ad”, “Sponsored”, “Gifted by @brand” and “Thanks @brand for the free product”. Short forms such as “sp”, “spon” or “#collab”, and a disclosure placed only in the bio or the hashtags, are easy to miss.

Payment is the obvious connection to mention, and a few others count too. Free or discounted product counts even when the brand never asked for a post, and the FTC sets no minimum value. Affiliate links and commission codes get a short note beside them, and employees, relatives and owners who post about the product mention the relationship. For brands, the FTC describes a reasonable program with four parts: tell creators what to say, show them how to disclose, look at what they post and follow up. FTC staff say a brand is not expected to know every statement every creator makes.

The FTC fake reviews rule, the Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule, took effect on October 21, 2024. For a creator campaign it comes down to four habits: ask for honest reviews and leave the verdict to the reviewer, use testimonials from real people with real experiences, have staff and family say who they are, and work with creators whose audiences are their own. The guide then gives a checklist for the brief, the agreement, the approval step and live posts, plus a one-page disclosure standard a brand can paste into every brief, with wording for captions, video, Stories, labels, links and codes.

On Aurelia the disclosure line comes already written in your campaign brief and carries into the agreement, so creators see the wording before they film. Campaign templates carry FTC disclosure guidance, and a brand kit’s always-do and never-do list carries into every campaign. Each creator’s agreement is generated from the campaign with a disclosure clause in the brand’s own wording, creators accept and sign in one step, and product ships only to creators who have signed. Drafts arrive in a versioned workroom where the brand comments at the exact second of a video, and closeout gives the brand one ZIP of every final file with its usage rights recorded.