From the Performance Marketing Insider archive. Originally published September 2011. Revisited October 2026.

5 Tips for Better Affiliate Product Reviews

In 2011 the advice was disclose, use the product and say what's wrong with it. By 2024 the FTC had turned most of it into federal penalties.

By Pesach Lattin

This post first ran on Performance Marketing Insider (performinsiders.com), the affiliate and lead generation trade site Pesach Lattin published from 2011 to 2020. The original text was lost when that site went dark. This page sits at the same address the old links point to, keeps the original headline and date, rebuilds the subject from the public record, and says what happened next.

In 2011 affiliate product reviews were the honest end of the business and the dishonest end at the same time, often on the same site. The tips that mattered then still matter, and the government has since written most of them into law.

The rules that already existed

The FTC's revised Endorsement Guides, effective December 2009, for the first time explicitly covered bloggers and word-of-mouth endorsers. If you were paid, got the product free or earned a commission, you had to disclose the material connection. Plenty of affiliate reviewers in 2011 treated that as optional.

What good reviews did then

Disclose the relationship where the reader will see it, not in a footer. Actually use the product. Say what is wrong with it, because a review with no downside reads like an ad and converts like one. Compare it to something the reader might buy instead. And never invent a testimonial, which was already the fastest way to turn an affiliate site into a defendant.

How it aged

The FTC tightened the guides in June 2023: disclosures must be clear and conspicuous, which online means unavoidable, and the rules now reach review brokers, agencies and reputation firms, and treat fake positive reviews as endorsements. In August 2024 the agency finalized a rule banning fake or AI-generated reviews, paying for reviews of a required sentiment, undisclosed insider reviews and fake social metrics, with civil penalties of more than $51,000 per violation, even on a first offense.

The 2011 tips were good business advice. In 2026 they are compliance. The reviewers who followed them back then are the only ones who did not have to change anything.

This page rebuilds a September 2011 Performance Marketing Insider post whose original text is not available; the five tips are restated from the guidance of the period rather than recovered verbatim. Facts on the 2009 and 2023 guides and the 2024 rule come from law-firm summaries of the FTC actions. The author co-founded LeadsCon.