Affiliate Disclosures: Write a Clear Commission Sentence

An affiliate disclosure should explain your compensation plainly and be easy to notice with the recommendation it concerns. Start with the real relationship, write the sentence, then check the page a reader encounters.

The US Federal Trade Commission's affiliate guidance says to disclose the retailer relationship clearly and conspicuously. It also explains why “affiliate link” alone may leave readers unaware that you receive money. This article uses that US guidance; it does not certify a page's legal compliance.

Match the words to the relationship

For your own page, record who benefits, what they receive and what triggers it. Consult the actual program terms or other reliable records before writing the disclosure.

If your arrangement pays a purchase commission, a conditional teaching example is:

If you buy through these links, I may earn a commission.

Use that wording only when it accurately describes your arrangement. If a company provided a free product, that is a different fact to explain; do not hide it behind a purchase-commission sentence. The FTC's disclosure guide includes non-cash benefits among material connections.

Avoid adding “at no extra cost” unless you have support for that statement. Likewise, do not say you bought a review item if it was supplied to you. A disclosure should clarify the relationship without inventing favorable terms or personal experience.

Read a real sentence for what it establishes

Productive Blogging's blogging-income survey article, checked on October 8, 2026, includes this existing sentence:

I may get paid commission for purchases made after clicking a link in this post.

The compensation phrase links to a disclosure-details page. The sentence identifies the recipient, possible payment, purchase trigger and this-post scope. It is useful as a writing pattern because the financial connection is expressed in ordinary words.

That public text does not establish the publisher's contract terms or whether every recommendation is accompanied by a prominent disclosure on every screen. Those questions would need their own evidence. There is no missing-disclosure finding here.

Check what readers actually encounter

The FTC's affiliate guidance favors keeping the disclosure close to the recommendation. Its disclosure guide also warns against placing the explanation only on a separate profile page or where readers must expand hidden content to find it.

For your own article, open the published page on desktop and phone. At the recommendation and its link, check:

• Can you see the compensation sentence and understand which recommendation it concerns?

• Is it readable against the page background, without opening another page or expanding a concealed section?

• If you arrive partway through the article, do you encounter the explanation before acting on that recommendation?

• If the page has several commercial sections, does each reader route preserve that connection?

A linked details page can supply more context. Keep the nearby explanation useful on its own. An image's alt attribute or an HTML link setting does not establish what sighted readers see beside a recommendation.

These are checks to perform, not findings about the Productive Blogging page. Record the actual result separately for each screen and location you inspect.

Keep a small wording-and-placement record

Download the disclosure worksheet. It contains a source-scoped observation and a clearly conditional teaching row, followed by a blank row for your own page.

Replace the teaching row with your recommendation, relationship evidence, proposed sentence and intended location. Leave desktop and phone results as “not checked” until you inspect them. If a relationship detail is unresolved, write the specific record or answer you need before settling the copy.

For deciding what you can honestly recommend, use affiliate keyword research. For the surrounding article topic, start with keyword research for bloggers. If you also describe the product, the separate product-description guide helps keep those claims grounded. Finish this record when the compensation sentence matches the known arrangement and your observed page makes its connection to the recommendation clear.