You MUST Disclose Whenever You’re Compensated!

There are many ways to earn income through podcasting: affiliates, sponsorships, sales, and more. Disclosing when you get compensated is not only the law, but it's also a good way to earn your audience's trust!

Read the FTC's resources

In the United States of America, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) maintains a fantastic guide on working with “endorsements.” This applies to sponsorships, affiliates, “pay to play,” and more.

I highly recommend you read their guide and consult with a lawyer if you have further questions because none of the following is legal advice, only sharing things I think you should do to honor the law and your audience, not things you can “get away with.”

Why should you disclose compensation?

Many countries have laws and enforced guidelines requiring you to disclose any time you're compensated for endorsing, mentioning, including, or referring to something or someone. Basically, you should disclose if you're compensated in any way.

The point is for your audience to have the information they need to make their own decisions about your opinions and whether your recommendations are tarnished by your being compensated. Even if your opinion is not swayed by compensation, you still need to disclose when you're compensated.

You might think, “Won't they stop caring if they know I get compensated?” And yes, that's a possibility, but it's the moral thing to do anyway! Besides, there are many things you can do to earn your audience's trust anyway, and I'll share some further here.

Take BlueHost and its many relatives for example (and yes, I earn from purchases through my own BlueHost affiliate link). These web-hosting providers get highly recommended all over the Internet and they are extremely popular hosting companies. But what you might not know is that they also pay some of the biggest affiliate fees of all, which is probably why they're recommended so much!

Now that you know that, does it change your opinion of BlueHost or what you think when someone recommends BlueHost?

That's not to say BlueHost is horrible and should never be recommended, only that you need to let your audience use their critical-thinking skills when you share an opinion and might get compensated in any way for it.

The same goes for any guests you might have in your podcast or at your events, or any products you have visible or even merely mention! If your guest is compensating you in any way to be on your podcast, your audience needs to know that! And if you were given a product to show off or were paid to use it, you need to disclose that!

This is all because it helps your audience make their own decisions about how much to trust your opinions.

Put yourself in the audience's place. Wouldn't you want to know if the person you were reading, w