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Quick answer: a YouTube description alone does not clear the FTC’s bar for your Amazon Associates disclosure. The FTC’s own guidance is specific about video: if you’re making an endorsement in a video, the disclosure has to be in the video itself, not just in the text underneath it. Your Amazon storefront disclosure and your FTC disclosure are two different requirements that happen to often live in the same sentence, and reposting a review from Amazon to YouTube is exactly where creators mix them up.
This comes up constantly in the communities: someone already has the “As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases” line handled for their Amazon-side video, reposts the same cut to YouTube, and assumes the description box covers them there too. It doesn’t, and the fix takes about ten seconds of screen time once you know the actual rule.
Two different disclosures, one video
Amazon’s requirement and the FTC’s requirement are not the same thing, even though they’re often satisfied in the same breath. Amazon requires the Associates line (“As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases”) wherever an Associates link appears. The FTC separately requires disclosure of any material connection, financial or otherwise, between you and a product you’re endorsing, per the FTC’s own guidance at ftc.gov. An Amazon commission counts as that kind of connection. Posting the video only on Amazon and satisfying Amazon’s own upload rules is one thing. Reposting the same file to YouTube puts you under the FTC’s platform-agnostic rule on top of it.
The rule everyone gets wrong: description-only isn’t enough
The FTC’s own disclosures guide states it plainly: if you’re making an endorsement in a video, the disclosure should be in the video and not just in the description uploaded with the video. The same guide warns that disclosures are likely to be missed if they only appear on an about page, at the end of a post, or anywhere that requires a viewer to click “more.” A YouTube description sits behind exactly that kind of click, so a description-only disclosure is the textbook example of what the FTC says not to rely on.
What does satisfy it: a spoken or on-screen disclosure early in the video itself, before the part where you’re actually recommending the product, worded plainly enough that a viewer doesn’t have to guess what it means. “This video contains affiliate links, I earn a commission if you buy through them” said out loud in the first 15 to 20 seconds, or burned onto the screen for long enough to actually read, both work. A tiny disclaimer buried at the very end after most viewers have already left does not meet the same bar, even though it’s technically “in the video.”
Do you need YouTube’s paid promotion checkbox too
YouTube’s own Advanced Settings has a separate “video contains paid promotion” toggle, and it’s a different mechanism from the FTC’s disclosure rule, built for a different situation. YouTube’s own help documentation describes it as the tool for when your content includes a paid product placement, endorsement, or other commercial relationship, and checking it triggers YouTube’s automatic 10 second disclosure card at the start of the video. That’s built for sponsorships and paid placements, brand-paid arrangements where money changed hands specifically to feature the product. A standard Amazon Associates commission, where you’re only paid if and when someone buys through your link after the fact, is the more common creator read on this as not the same kind of arrangement the checkbox targets, since nobody paid you upfront to make the video. Treat that as the reasonable practice being followed, not an Amazon or YouTube rule stated in so many words, since neither company’s own help pages spell out affiliate links as a specific exception.
The safer framing: the paid promotion checkbox is YouTube’s tool, the FTC disclosure is the law. Skipping the checkbox on a plain affiliate video is common practice. Skipping an actual in-video FTC disclosure is not something either company’s policy or the checkbox can substitute for.
What this looks like on an actual repost
Say your review already went up on your Amazon storefront with the Associates line in the video per Amazon’s own requirement. Reposting the exact same cut to YouTube: add roughly one sentence, spoken or on-screen, near the top of the video, that plainly says you earn a commission from purchases made through the links in the description. You don’t need two separate disclosures fighting for space, one sentence that mentions the affiliate relationship covers both jobs at once, since Amazon’s own required wording and the FTC’s requirement overlap almost entirely in substance. Keep the Associates line in the description too, since that’s still where the actual links live and where Amazon expects to see it.
Why this actually gets enforced
This isn’t a hypothetical compliance exercise. The FTC has brought enforcement actions against influencers and marketing companies over inadequate disclosure in the past several years, and the agency’s own guidance exists specifically because “I mentioned it once in the caption” kept showing up as the excuse. Amazon closing your Influencer account for a disclosure failure is a separate, program-level risk this site has covered before. The FTC’s own enforcement is a second, independent risk sitting on top of it. Getting the in-video disclosure right protects against both at once, not just one.
The fastest way to never miss it
ReviewCut burns the FTC disclosure into the finished cut automatically as part of the same edit pass that removes dead air and tightens the hook, so a repost from Amazon to YouTube doesn’t depend on remembering to add a separate line for a separate platform. It won’t decide the checkbox question for you since that’s a case-by-case call about your own arrangement with a brand, but the actual disclosure text is handled either way. Your first finished review is free every month, no card required.
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Frequently asked questions
Does putting the disclosure in the YouTube description count?
By itself, no. The FTC’s own guidance says a video endorsement’s disclosure belongs in the video, and treats the description as too easy to skip. Keep the Associates link disclosure in the description too, and add a spoken or on-screen disclosure inside the video as well.
Do affiliate links require YouTube’s paid promotion checkbox?
YouTube’s own help pages describe that checkbox for paid placements and brand-paid commercial relationships, not for a standard pay-on-purchase affiliate link. Most creators reasonably treat a plain Amazon Associates link as not requiring it, though neither Amazon nor YouTube states affiliate links as an explicit exception in writing. The FTC’s in-video disclosure requirement applies either way.
Is the Amazon Associates disclosure the same thing as the FTC disclosure?
They overlap in substance but come from two different sources. Amazon requires the Associates line wherever a link appears. The FTC separately requires any material connection to be disclosed clearly to viewers, in the video itself for a video endorsement. One sentence that plainly states you earn a commission from the links can satisfy both at once.