FTC disclosure for UGC: a plain-English guide

The two rules you need to know

Two FTC texts cover most of what UGC teams run into.

• The Endorsement Guides, 16 CFR Part 255 (revised in 2023). They explain when a post is an endorsement, what counts as a material connection, and what clear disclosure looks like.
• The Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule, 16 CFR Part 465 (finalized August 2024, effective October 21, 2024). It is a rule, not guidance, and violations can carry civil penalties of up to $53,088 each.

Is your UGC an endorsement?

Almost certainly. Under 16 CFR 255.0(b), an endorsement is any message consumers are likely to believe reflects the opinions or experiences of someone other than the advertiser. The endorser can be, or merely appear to be, an individual.

That covers creator videos, ambassador posts, testimonial-style ads and UGC that a brand pays people to post on their own accounts. If it looks like a real person's opinion, treat it as an endorsement.

Endorsements must also be honest. Section 255.1(a) says they must reflect the endorser's honest opinions and experience, and 255.1(e) makes endorsers liable if they falsely claim they used a product. The 2024 rule goes further: a business can't create or spread a testimonial that misrepresents that the person exists or that they actually used the product (16 CFR 465.2).

What counts as a material connection

A material connection is any relationship that might affect how much weight the audience gives the endorsement. Section 255.5 says these must be disclosed clearly and conspicuously. In practice, disclose when the poster gets:

• Money, per post or per month.
• Free product, including gifted samples and product seeding.
• Discounts, store credit, points or entries into a prize draw.
• Commission or affiliate links.
• Employment, or a family or business relationship with the brand.

The FTC's own examples include an employee posting about the employer's product in an online community, and students earning points for posts. Both need disclosure. Paid posters and ambassadors are agents of the brand, and 16 CFR 465.5(b) bars disseminating their testimonials without disclosure of the relationship.

Product seeding

Sending free product with no obligation to post still creates a material connection if they post about it. The safe practice: tell everyone you seed that if they post, they should disclose the free product, and give them the exact words to use.

Where #ad goes, and hashtags that don't work

The 2024 rule defines clear and conspicuous for social media plainly: the disclosure must be unavoidable, and it is not clear and conspicuous if the viewer has to take any action, like clicking or tapping, to see it (16 CFR 465.1(c)).

Why the label alone may not be enough: the Endorsement Guides note (255.0, Example 3) that relying only on a platform's built-in disclosure tool may fall short if the label isn't clear. Using both costs nothing.

Disclosing in short-form video

Captions on TikTok and Reels are often cut off, and many viewers never read them. For video, the strongest practice is to disclose in the video itself.

1. Say it. "This is an ad for [Brand]" or "[Brand] paid me to try this" in the first few seconds.
2. Show it. On-screen text like "#ad" or "Paid partnership" long enough to read.
3. Caption it. #ad as the first word.
4. Label it. Turn on the platform's paid-partnership or content disclosure setting.

If the video is long or the endorsement repeats throughout, repeat the disclosure. A disclosure at the very end, after most people have scrolled, doesn't do much.

The fake likes and fake accounts part

The 2024 rule added something UGC teams should read closely. Section 465.8 bans selling, or knowingly buying, fake indicators of social media influence for a commercial purpose. Section 465.1 defines indicators to include followers, views, plays, likes, saves, shares, reposts and comments, and fake indicators to include ones generated by bots or by accounts not associated with a real individual.

The Endorsement Guides already called buying or creating fake indicators of influence a deceptive practice (255.0, Example 13).

• Don't buy followers, views or likes for creator or brand accounts.
• Don't pay people to like, comment on or repost each other's sponsored posts.
• Don't create accounts for people who don't exist.

Who is liable, and what to keep on file

Everyone in the chain. Advertisers can be liable for failing to disclose unexpected material connections, and the Guides say they should train and monitor endorsers (255.1(d)). Agencies, PR firms, review brokers and similar intermediaries can be liable for hiring and directing endorsers who don't disclose (255.1(f)).

Good records are the practical defense. For each campaign, keep:

• The written disclosure instructions every poster received.
• Signed acknowledgements of disclosure training.
• The approved claims list and any substantiation for objective claims.
• The live URL for every post and a screenshot showing the disclosure and label.
• Who reviewed each post and when, plus what you did when a post missed the disclosure.

The FTC is paying attention. It sent warning letters to 10 companies under the new rule in December 2025.

Worked examples: fix the caption

Here are common UGC captions and how to repair them. The product and brand names are made up for illustration.

Notice the pattern: the disclosure comes first, uses plain words, and says what the connection is when it isn't obvious (free product, commission, payment).

Disclosure doesn't fix a false claim

A clear #ad tells viewers the post is paid. It doesn't make an untrue statement acceptable. Two rules from the Endorsement Guides apply to every paid post, disclosed or not:

• Honest opinion. Endorsements must reflect the endorser's honest opinions, findings, beliefs or experience (16 CFR 255.1(a)). Don't hand posters a script that says they love something they haven't tried.
• Real use. Endorsers are liable if they falsely say they personally used a product (255.1(e)), and the 2024 rule bars testimonials that misrepresent that the person used the product (465.2).

Practical steps: ship product early so posters have real experience, give them an approved claims list, and keep objective claims ("lasts 12 hours", "saves $40 a month") out of briefs unless your team has substantiation on file. Health, money and before and after claims deserve extra review.

A disclosure program checklist

If you run UGC at any volume, this is the minimum program we'd want in place before the first post:

1. A one-page disclosure policy with exact wording for captions, on-screen text and spoken lines.
2. Disclosure training for every poster, with a signed acknowledgement.
3. An approved claims list and a banned claims list in every brief.
4. A pre-posting check for regulated claims, and a post-publication check on every live post.
5. A fix process: who contacts the poster, how fast, and how the fix is recorded.
6. A proof log with URL, screenshot, date, and reviewer for each post.
7. A rule against paid likes, comments, follows or views, written into poster terms.
8. A periodic review of the policy with counsel.

How Postfield handles this

We put #ad at the start of every caption automatically, require posters to confirm the platform label before they can submit, and block approval without it. The details are on our compliance page.