Let's Talk Compliance
What the FTC has to say on this
In 2018 I got a little letter saying I needed to remove a pin that I had repinned. Here is a snippet of that letter. Yes, I digitally keep everything. I’m an email hoarder. But, hey, it works out at times like this.
I hadn’t created the pin. I had simply repinned it. And this is how “it” happens. Every time I bring up “the rules” someone says “well, so and so big creator does it, and they don’t get in trouble”. My response is to mention the hundreds of others who do get caught and banned, they just aren’t “big enough” for you to hear about it. I have no explanation for why some people seem to get away with operating outside the rules and others don’t. But we all know it happens. What I can tell you, as someone who started pinning in 2012, is that it goes in waves.
Did you know that there are groups of just regular folks out there on places like Reddit that are set up with the sole intention of reporting FTC and FDA violations? Right now they are hyperfocused on AI and Amazon content on Pinterest. Typically the FTC or Amazon itself will get enough reports that they will put a team on it, cast a wide net and a whole bunch of fish will get caught at once, waking up one morning to not being able to log into their $10K a month accounts. Raise your hand in the comments if you are old enough to have seen these waves occur. I have, more than a few times.
Did you catch that? This isn’t just Amazon’s rule. These are rules set by the FTC and Amazon will get in trouble if they don’t police it.
So, enough with the scary stories and let’s make sure you stay out of those nets as you move offline. The good news is that the FTC couldn’t make this any clearer.
After reading through this handy guide they put out for social media influencers I am going to change my Pinterest disclosures going forward to putting it in the first sentence. Which won’t be great for my SEO but I’d rather be safe. I also went through and did a bulk edit on my YouTube videos to update my descriptions to be more in line. This is what I changed them to:
Amazon Affiliate Link - Product title : Genius Deeplink
*This is how the above looks in case it is confusing: Amazon Affiliate Link - iPaw Sweet Potato Dog Treats: https://geni.us/Fzsw
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. If this is something you decide to try, using my link helps support this space at no added cost to you.
🎁 This product was gifted to me for review purposes. All opinions are my own.
A note on linking tools: Amazon requires that affiliate links use their properly tagged Special Link formats. GeniusLink routes through a tagged URL and is widely used by Associates, but if you're using any third-party link management tool, confirm it's routing correctly through your tagged Amazon link before using it at scale.
The good news if you want to do this on YouTube? It is SUPER easy to bulk edit a description. It will take you just a few minutes to update all of your videos at once. Here are the steps:
***Remember: within the Amazon Influencer Program, you must verbally acknowledge if a product was sent to you for free — something like "thank you to [brand name] for sending me this product to review." On Amazon's platform, Amazon displays a commission disclosure to shoppers on your behalf. But the moment that video lives anywhere offsite — YouTube, Pinterest, your blog — you are responsible for your own affiliate disclosure. That's the "As an Amazon Associate…" language, and it needs to be visible to the viewer, not just in the description.
The waves will come again. I've seen it enough times to know that. So, don’t copy what your favorite influencer is doing. Read the rules for yourself so you don’t end up with a violation letter yourself or worse, a banned account. Be careful about not only what you create, but what you share. You've got the FTC's own guide now, you know what a violation letter looks like up close, and you've got a five-minute fix for your YouTube descriptions if you need it. Go take care of the simple, boring things that help you keep earning for decades to come.
If you are not yet putting your videos on YouTube? Get started here:
