The ASA influencer guidelines, published jointly with the CMA, say that anything you have been paid or otherwise incentivised to post, including gifted products, affiliate links and posts about your own brand, must be obviously identifiable as advertising the moment someone sees it. In practice that means a prominent label such as Ad, Advert or Advertisement at the very start, rather than a hashtag at the end, and not soft words like sponsored, gifted or collab. Two regimes apply: the CAP Code, which the ASA enforces when a brand has paid you and had some control over the content, and consumer protection law, which the CMA enforces and which reaches every incentivised post.
Two regimes: the CAP Code and consumer law
Section 2 of the CAP Code is short. Rule 2.1 says marketing communications must be obviously identifiable as such. Rule 2.3 bans falsely claiming or implying that a marketer is acting as a consumer, and requires commercial intent to be made clear where the context does not already show it. Rule 2.4 requires advertorials to be labelled, for example as “advertisement feature”. The Code now notes that rules 2.3 and 2.4 reflect banned practices in Schedule 20 of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024.
The ASA's reach over posts promoting someone else's brand depends on two things together. Its Influencers' guide to making clear that ads are ads says the ASA can act where a brand paid you in some way, not necessarily money, and had some editorial control, including final approval. Control is read widely: required words, hashtags or key messages, set posting dates or numbers of posts, specified shots or actions, a right to approve or request changes, even an expectation that content will be made. The guide's rule of thumb is that if you were not completely free to say whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted, or to post nothing, the brand probably had control. Own-brand promotion, giveaways and affiliate content fall within the ASA's remit regardless.
Consumer law has no control test. The CMA's guidance for content creators, updated 3 September 2025, says that whenever you have been incentivised to post, the content must be clearly labelled as an ad and reflect your genuine experience, including when a business sent a gift or an event invitation without asking for anything. The stakes rose when the DMCCA's consumer provisions took effect: the CMA's April 2025 announcement says it can now decide for itself whether consumer law has been broken and fine a company up to 10% of its global turnover.
One caution about dates. The influencers' guide is the third edition, published on 23 March 2023, and its landing page now carries a note that updates for the DMCCA will be made in due course while the advice remains broadly correct. Expect references to the older Consumer Protection Regulations inside it; the CMA page and the CAP Code are the more current texts.
Label decision flow: paid, gifted, affiliate or your own brand
Work down the table and stop at the first row that fits. Every row except the last ends in the same place: an upfront ad label.
| What happened | Who can act | Label it as an ad? |
|---|---|---|
| A brand paid you and approved the script, messages or posting dates | ASA under the CAP Code, plus the CMA and Trading Standards | Yes, upfront |
| A brand paid you but left the content entirely to you | The CMA and Trading Standards; the ASA's control test may not be met | Yes, consumer law still requires it |
| You were sent a gift, loan, trip, hotel stay or event invite, asked for or not | The CMA; the ASA too if the brand had any control | Yes, even with no obligation to post |
| The post carries an affiliate link or code that earns you commission | ASA, which treats the brand as at least jointly responsible, plus the CMA | Yes, before the affiliate content |
| You are promoting your own product, collection, event or giveaway | ASA and the CMA | Yes; your bio does not count |
| You work for, own shares in or represent the brand, or it belongs to family or friends | The CMA, and the ASA where it has remit | Yes |
| You bought the product yourself and have no link to the brand | Neither, for disclosure purposes | No label needed |
The influencers' guide also says you are expected to disclose throughout an ongoing relationship and in relevant content for 12 months after it ends, so a post about a former partner's product can still need a label. If you are unsure where a post sits, the ASA's free Copy Advice service will look at it.
Labels the ASA and CMA accept, and the ones to drop
The ASA's AdviceOnline entry on recognising ads in social media and influencer marketing, updated in August 2026, says both regulators prefer labels that call the content advertising outright. Ad, Advert, Advertising, Ad Feature and the Code's own Advertisement Feature are all very likely to be accepted, with or without a hashtag, though a label may need brackets or asterisks to stand out.
- Sponsored: the ASA advises against it because people read it in different ways, and the CMA lists #sponsored among words to avoid. This is a sharp difference from US guidance, which accepts “Sponsored by [brand]”.
- Gifted or gift: unlikely to be clear enough on its own, according to both regulators.
- Supported by, funded by, in association with, in partnership with, or thanks to a brand for making something possible.
- PR, PR trip, PR haul or PR stay, which outsiders rarely decode.
- Aff, afflink and affiliate, which the ASA's research found people poorly understand.
- Collab, brand ambassador, [brand] ambassador or iworkwith[brand].
- “My collection”, “my edit” or “we created together” for a range you designed with a brand.
- A discount code, an affiliate link or a brand tag with no label, none of which the CMA accepts as disclosure.
Platform tools sit in between. The ASA says a branded content label such as Instagram's Paid partnership may be enough if it is upfront, clear and prominent, notes that its 2026 research found such labels help but may not suffice alone, and advises adding Ad if you are unsure. The CMA says to check that the tool clearly conveys an ad and, if not, to add #Ad in a clear upfront position. Settings are covered in our guides to the Instagram paid partnership label and the TikTok disclosure setting.
Placement checklist by format
Both regulators test the label from the audience's side: could someone tell, immediately and without clicking, that this is an ad? Check each format against these points.
- Instagram and Facebook captions: label at the beginning. A label visible only after See more fails, and so does one lost in a run of hashtags or in a colour that blends into the background.
- Carousels and Story sequences: label every frame or story that carries promotion, since each can be seen on its own.
- Reels and TikTok videos: make the ad nature clear before the viewer taps to watch where possible, and from the opening moment otherwise; a label hidden behind the caption's more link is not enough.
- YouTube: put Ad or similar in the title or thumbnail so people know before they click, not partway through the video.
- X: open with Ad; in a very short post the label may sit at the end, provided it is not buried among hashtags.
- Pinterest: start the description with the label, because little of it shows without a click.
- Podcasts and video reads: disclose at the beginning of the ad itself, as the CMA asks.
- Reposts across formats, such as a Story pointing to a feed post: label each piece separately.
- Long editorial content with a paid segment: label the advertising sections clearly rather than the whole piece.
- Collab posts with a brand: the ASA ruled in 2024 that a post co-authored with a brand through Instagram's collaborative feature was still not identifiable as an ad, because some users would not know the feature or recognise the brand's handle. Our Instagram collab post guide covers the feature; add Ad regardless.
- Content aimed at under-12s: an upfront label is unlikely to be enough, and the ASA expects enhanced, interruptive disclosure that names the marketer.
Gifts, affiliate links and own-brand posts in detail
Gifts trip people up because nothing was asked in return. The CMA's guidance says gifts are payment and posts about them must be labelled as ads even with no obligation, and the influencers' guide treats unsolicited products, trips, stays, loans and event invites the same way. Whether those gifts are taxable is a separate question for HMRC and your accountant, not your caption.
Affiliate content is advertising because you earn from the interest you create. The guide says that if a whole post is about affiliate-linked products, the whole post needs labelling upfront; if only some products carry links, the label must sit before the affiliate parts, and a general line saying some links might earn commission does not do the job.
Own-brand posts need labels too. The CMA says anyone who owns, co-owns, works for or is otherwise connected to a brand must label posts promoting it as ads, including brands owned by family or friends, and must not rely on a bio or earlier posts to explain the link. Virtual and AI personas are inside the ASA's definition of an influencer; our AI influencer disclosure guide covers the extra questions they raise.
What happens if you do not label
When an influencer ad breaches the Code, the ASA names both the influencer and the brand in its ruling. For influencers who repeatedly fail to disclose, the ASA's sanctions page lists two tools: adding your details to its non-compliant social media influencers page for up to three months, and running its own targeted ads on the platform to alert users that you have repeatedly failed to disclose. Persistent offenders can be referred to Trading Standards. The guide adds that platforms may remove content or accounts and brands may stop working with you, and that formal action by the CMA or Trading Standards is possible.
Brands carry the same duty, and the guide points to template contract terms from ISBA, the brands' trade body, that cover labelling. If you work across markets, compare these rules with the FTC influencer disclosure rules and the Australian disclosure rules: a plain Ad at the start is accepted wording in all three, while sponsored and gifted do not travel well.
Limitations of this guide
This page is general information based on the ASA, CAP and GOV.UK pages linked above as they read when we checked them, not legal advice. The joint influencers' guide is awaiting its DMCCA update, AdviceOnline entries do not bind the ASA, and ASA rulings turn on their facts. Some products bring rules of their own that a label cannot satisfy, including gambling, alcohol, foods high in fat, salt or sugar, and financial promotions regulated by the FCA, so check the relevant CAP Code sections and get specialist advice before accepting those deals.