Affiliate marketing is a legit method for making money online but to do it legally there are some documents you need and actions you have to take, and understand.
In contrary to the affiliate marketing success stories that you hear about, it’s not as simple as creating a website or YouTube channel and you start racking in money.
In this post, I’m going to show you everything you need to do affiliate marketing the legal way and where you can find the resources needed for that.
What is affiliate marketing?
For those that don’t know, affiliate marketing is a form of marketing where companies allow indepent marketers to market their products in exchange for a commission.
Unlike multi-level marketing, no recruiting takes place and you don’t have invest money to keep your status as an affiliate of a company. You simply sign-up, receive an affiliate links that is directed at the companies salespages and if someone buys a product using your link you’ll receive a commission.
Examples of affiliate programs are:
- Booking.com’s hotel affiliate program
Earn money by having people book their hotels through links that direct to booking.com. - Amazon associates
Refer people to Amazon.com through personalised affiliate links to earn a commission.
What do you need to do affiliate marketing legally?
As an affiliate marketer, there are some legal pages that have to be on your website. Having these pages on your website prevent you from getting fines, lawsuits, and overall a lot of unnecessary stress.
1. Privacy policy
On your affiliate website, you should have atleast 1 page dedicated to your privacy policy. On this page you disclose how you’ll use the data you gather from people visiting your website. For example, if you’re going to share people’s information with a third party it’s obligated that you disclose that.
Most big affiliate programs will also not accept your application to them if this page is missing which makes sense because in away you’re representing their products when naming them in your content.
2. Affiliate/Earnings disclaimer
The affiliate disclaimer is in a lot of ways similar to the privacy policy but in on this page, you don’t focus on the data you gather but the act of promoting affiliate products.
Often a simple, disclosure on the page you recommend a certain affiliate product can be enough but I’d recommend fully covering yourself by creating a separate page with the disclaimer that’s in a sidebar that show’s up on every page.
3. GDPR
GDPR stands for General data protection rule. Just like the normal privacy policy the GDPR focusses on the data you gather from users but in specific those of European users.
You might not target europe at all with your marketing but that doesn’t mean once in awhile random european website visitors lands on your website. There have been countless times I’ve been on websites I had no business being on.
This is why you should have your website comply with Europe’s GDPR.
There are free GDPR plugins on the WordPress directory that you can use to make your website GDPR compliant.
Consequences of not having these policies and disclaimers on your website
1.Affiliate programs will deny your applications
Affiliate programs are very strict when it comes to policies regarding privacy and earnings because of the FTC. If you don’t have a privacy policy and don’t disclose that you’re promoting affiliate program your chances of getting accepted decrease.
2.Getting kicked out of affiliate programs
Most affiliate programs have this as a strict rule so you can expect when breaching it that you’ll get kicked out of the affiliate program and possibly won’t be able to apply for a long period.
3. You can get fined
According to the GPDR website, fines for breaching GPDR can occur even though from what I read this mostly apply to big companies. They can go as high as taking 2% of the companies annual revenue.
I don’t see things like this happen to small scale affiliates but why take the risk to find out? I’d advise you better to be save than sorry when it comes to these things.
How does this work if you do affiliate marketing solely on YouTube?
You might have seen youtube channels that do affiliate marketing and might wonder if this applies to those videos aswel. On YouTube you aren’t the one that is gathering the data.
YouTube itself is doing that and you might notice that most YouTubers that do affiliate marketing have a website because most affiliate programs won’t let you join unless you have a website.
Resources for legal affiliate marketing
Most of these resources can be found all over the internet in the form of templates that you can simply fill-in. With all these choices you’re going to have to make a choice.
Are you going to make use of free templates or pay for custom legal documents or services?
I can’t tell you which you should pick because both can be beneficial depending on the situation but I can give you some information to make it easier to pick.
Free legal templates vs. Paid legal templates
There are a lot of free privacy policy generators like the one at freeprivacypolicy.com. These generators are incredibly popular because you don’t have to pay anything and you’ll get adequate content out of it.
When I started affiliate marketing, I didn’t want to hear anything about paying for documents simply because I was broke and I can imagine that some of you reading this think the same.
So why would anyone invest in paying for it.
Well there are a few advantages when such as:
- The documents get updated
The GDPR came out of nowhere and just like that a lot of changes occur all the time. Most paid services will provide you with free adjustments to your page for a 1-time price. - Pages are designed for your targeted audience
It’s important that your pages are readable. Most free templates have a block of text that looks like it’s written for scientists. If the page isn’t readable for your targeted audience it can leave you liable for legal action. - You often get provided with documents for other services
Affiliates often make money using several methods which also need legal documents. Most of these documents can’t be downloaded for free because they have to be personalised.
You can listen to a podcast interview I did with a 6-figure legal blogger right here in which we talk about what pages are needed for an online business to operate legally and we dive deeper into the benefits of paid legal templates.
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My recommendation for covering yourself legally
If you want to fully cover yourself legally, I’d recommend looking at the aselfguru legal store. They provide people with templates not only for affiliate marketing but every kind of business that has an online presence.
The legal store has bundles that provide you with:
- Sponsored post contracts
- Disclaimer templates
- Freelance contracts
- Guestblogger agreements
- Coaching agreements
- Giveaway/sweepstakes agreements
- and much more.
Most successful affiliate marketers get into areas that they’ll eventually need these type of documents. Interested in being covered on all bases take a look at the aselfguru legal store.
Interested in becoming an affiliate or you’re in the middle of the journey leave a comment with how it’s going in the comments. I’d love to hear about it.
That’s all for today.
Until the next post!
This completely blew my mind. I know from my website that I have the private policy, affiliate disclosure, cookie policy (separated), and also terms and conditions, but what I’m not sure of is if my website is safe regarding European GDPR. May I ask what is the plug-in that you briefly mentioned?
There are a lot of free plugins you can use but I use the “GDPR Cookie Consent” plugin.
Thank you very much for giving me this introduction to the world of affiliate marketing. I didn’t know that it was so important to have policies and disclaimers set if we’re going to operate a business like this. And it’s good to set them up from the very start. My conclusion is that affiliate marketing is a model that’s worth trying out.
Hey Ann.
I’m glad you liked the article.
This is a very helpful post for anybody that is starting with affiliate marketing and have concerns about the legal side of it. I do have a privacy policy and affiliate disclaimer on my website, but I have never heard of the GPDR requirements for European standards.
How do I know if my website conforms to the GPDR requirements? You mention a plugin, but which one is the best to use? Thanks.
You basically got to disclose your cookie policy. I use the “GDPR Cookie Consent” plugin that’s in the free WordPress plugin directory.
Thanks Rogier,
There’s so much to know about affiliate marketing it is good to get a reminder to make sure all your i’s are dotted and your t’s are crossed when it comes to legal bits.
I’ve been an affiliate marketer for a few years and I’m still learning stuff. Commenting on different sites is a great way of increasing my knowledge base. So thumbs up to you. Cheers
Hey Andrew.
It’s good to hear you learned some new stuff because of my post. Planning to post a lot of similar posts in the next few months.
Hi Rogier,
I didn’t know about that plugin, sounds like a great one to add to the site. Thank you. I’m still learning more about affiliate marketing and love the idea of a more passive income.
Hey Lisa,
Thanks for the comment. It’s indeed a handy plugin to have.