A social commerce disclosure policy that classifies creator relationships and controls labels

A disclosure policy should tell a creator, brand and reviewer how to classify a commercial relationship, label the finished content, record approval and pause a failure. It should cover posts seen by UK audiences and require a fresh legal or specialist check for the specific product and format.

What to take away

Define the relationships covered

List paid content, gifts, loans, affiliate commission, ambassador arrangements, brand-owned creator accounts, employee posts and reused customer material. Record both payment and editorial control. The ASA and CAP influencer guide, titled Influencers' guide to making clear that ads are ads, explains how those facts affect whether content is advertising and discusses affiliate marketing.

Do not classify content from the label the parties would prefer. A gifted product can still create a commercial relationship, while independent editorial should not be falsely described as an advert merely to simplify administration. Escalate uncertain cases with the full agreement and brief.

Worked example. A brand sends a product with no fee and no brief, and the creator posts a positive video. Payment is the gift; editorial control sits with the creator. If the brand asked for coverage or approved the wording, the gift becomes part of an advertising arrangement and the post needs a label.

In the second case, the creator joins an affiliate programme, uses a tracked link and earns commission on sales. Payment is commission and the brand controls the offer and the link, so the label must make the commission clear before the viewer clicks.

Set the recognition standard

Section 2 of the CAP Code, Recognition of marketing communications, requires marketing communications to be obviously identifiable. The policy should require viewers to recognise commercial intent from the content they encounter, without searching a biography, opening more text or inferring meaning from a discount code.

Specify accepted wording only after checking the CAP Code and the ASA and CAP Influencers' guide to making clear that ads are ads. Define placement for short video, live content, images, captions and reposts.

The ASA's 2026 recognising ads guidance, titled Recognising ads: social media and video sharing platforms, explains that labels should be clear and prominent and discusses platform tools. Require inspection of cropping, overlays and the first view on mobile.

Use wording that fits the format and place it where the viewer meets it first. Typical examples:

For live sessions, state how the commercial status appears to someone joining midway and who corrects an absent label. For a multi-part story or carousel, decide which items need recognition rather than assuming the first frame will always be seen. Reassess translations instead of copying a label whose meaning may not be equally clear.

Allocate decisions and evidence

Name who gathers the contract and payment facts, who classifies the content, who approves the label and who monitors publication. Keep a record using the fields in this template.

Give creators a route for late changes. A new affiliate link, paid boost or brand edit can alter the relationship after initial approval. The policy should prevent publication until the changed execution has been reassessed.

Train with the business's own formats. Ask staff to classify a paid brief, an unsolicited gift, an affiliate post, a reused review and an employee demonstration, while allowing "escalate" as a correct outcome. Record misunderstandings and revise the decision notes before testing people again.

Separate reviews from endorsements

A commercial creator post must not be presented as an independent customer opinion. For customer material, store provenance, incentive, permission, edits and moderation. The CMA's fake-reviews guidance, the Competition and Markets Authority's published guidance on fake and misleading reviews, covers fake and concealed incentivised reviews and misleading derived review information under the current consumer regime.

Define how the business displays incentives and handles genuine negative material. Do not convert selected praise into a rating or "most customers" claim without evidence supporting that interpretation.

Monitor and correct

Inspect the uploaded item from a fresh account at publication and after material edits. Check video opening, caption, product card, linked page and reused paid placement. Record a screenshot where platform terms and privacy rules permit it.

Set pause triggers for a missing or obscured label, changed commercial relationship, inaccurate product claim, expired offer or reuse outside the licensed context. Assign out-of-hours authority for live selling.

Review the policy against current CAP Code and the CMA's fake-reviews guidance before every new format and at least every six months.

For an incident, preserve the public version and record affected formats before correction. The review should examine approval, upload and platform display, then assign any customer or specialist follow-up.

Before you act

Common questions

Where should a suspected failure be reported?

Report a suspected label failure through the ASA's online complaints route and record the reference. Competition and consumer law concerns go to the Competition and Markets Authority through its published contact route.