How to add ad labels for FTC and EU compliance

Ad labels clearly mark paid advertising, helping users distinguish between editorial content and sponsored messages. In this manual, you’ll learn how to use ad labels with Advanced Ads to maintain transparency and build trust with your audience. For example, you’ll see how to add a “Sponsored” label above a banner ad within a blog post, ensuring readers instantly recognize it as paid content.

You’ll also learn where to place ad labels, how to adjust them in Advanced Ads, and which settings work best in different scenarios. This manual covers all customization options, including HTML and CSS modifications. You’ll find ready-to-use CSS snippets to easily change the look of your labels. Whether you want to tweak the color, size, or position, this guide shows exactly where to make changes in Advanced Ads to match your site’s design.

What is an ad label

An ad label in online advertising is a clear identification that marks content as paid advertising. Publishers should or must use it to ensure transparency and inform users explicitly that they are viewing sponsored content.

Example: A lifestyle blog publishes an article about the latest fashion trends. Within the article, there’s a paragraph that highlights explicitly a clothing item from a particular brand. Above this section, there’s a clear label stating “Advertisement” or “Sponsored”. This immediately informs readers that this portion of the content is paid advertising, allowing them to contextualize it appropriately.

The use of ad labels enhances the credibility of the publisher and helps prevent misleading advertising practices. It also ensures compliance with legal requirements, protecting both the publisher and the audience from potential legal issues related to undisclosed advertising.

Why ad labels matter

Marking ads as such is crucial not only for maintaining user trust but also for complying with legal requirements in many countries. Advertising regulations in the US, EU, UK, and other regions all require some form of disclosure. Failing to clearly label ads may result in legal consequences and erode user trust.

United States’ FTC Endorsement Guidelines

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) requires that any “material connection” between a publisher and an advertiser be disclosed in a way that is clear, conspicuous, and close to the related content. This includes:

• Display ads placed for a fee
• Affiliate links and sponsored banners
• Native ads that appear inside editorial content

Labels like “Advertisement”, “Sponsored”, or “Affiliate link” are generally sufficient, but vague terms like “Partner” are not. Disclosures must also be visible on mobile and not hidden behind dropdowns or at the end of the page.

Unfair Commercial Practices Directive for the European Union

In the EU, the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (Directive 2005/29/EC) prohibits misleading or deceptive marketing. Publishers are required to clearly identify commercial content. If you are paid or incentivized to publish ads or links, you must disclose that fact visibly.

Some countries (like Germany or France) enforce this more strictly than others. For example, German courts have ruled that terms like “Anzeige” (“advertisement”) must be used clearly above sponsored content, not hidden or styled to blend in.

United Kingdom’s ASA and CAP Code

The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) and the CAP Code mandate that marketing communications be “obviously identifiable” as such. This applies to:

• Display ads
• Affiliate promotions
• Sponsored blog posts
• User-generated content promoted through brand deals

The ASA recommends using labels like “Ad”, “Ad feature”, or “Sponsored”, placed above or immediately adjacent to the promotional content.

Advanced Ads gives you the tools to meet these global disclosure standards without relying on third-party workarounds. You can display clear ad labels such as “Sponsored” or “Advertisement” directly above or below any ad unit, making it easy to signal commercial content to your visitors.

Affiliate disclosures and ad labels are not the same

If you use affiliate banners or product placements on your site, you might already include a disclosure at the top of your articles. That’s a good start—but it may not be enough on its own.

Affiliate disclosures are intended to inform readers that the content includes affiliate links and that you may earn a commission. They’re usually placed at the beginning of a blog post or in a sticky banner and apply to the entire page. However, when affiliate content is placed separately—such as a banner between paragraphs, in a sidebar, or within a widget—it should also be labeled individually as an ad.

In these cases, regulations like the FTC guidelines or the UK’s CAP Code expect a clear, direct label like “Sponsored” or “Advertisement” next to the specific element, not just a general disclosure somewhere else on the page. This is especially important if the ad resembles editorial content or might not be recognized as commercial by default.To meet both requirements, we recommend combining a general affiliate disclosure with ad labels on individual banners or creatives.

How to use the ad label feature

Advanced Ads offers flexible ad labeling options that you can customize at different levels, from general settings to specific ads. This gives you complete control over how and where labels appear on your site, making meeting a wide range of requirements easy.

You can manage ad labels in three main areas:

• General settings: for site-wide consistency
• Placement settings: for specific ad locations
• Individual ad settings: for unique cases

This hierarchical approach ensures that you can fine-tune ad labels to meet various requirements and situations, providing a comprehensive solution for ad labeling across your website.

Enabling the ad label option

If you want consistent ad labeling across your site, enabling the general ad label option is a smart choice. It saves you time by automatically adding labels to all supported placements.

To activate this feature in Advanced Ads, go to Advanced Ads > Settings > General and switch on the ad label option. Once enabled, the label will appear on all compatible placements, such as Content placements. This is especially useful if you plan to label most of your ads.

You can customize the ad label to match your site’s style or requirements. Simply enter your preferred text to maintain a consistent and compliant ad labeling strategy.

Allow HTML in ad labels

The input field supports HTML, allowing you to add links or apply custom formatting to align with your website’s design. 

Specifically, the following HTML elements are supported: 

• a
• b
• blockquote
• cite
• code
• del
• em
• i
• q
• s
• span
• strike
• br
• strong

Here’s an example HTML code to link the label “Advertisements” to example.com/advertise-here:

<a href="https://example.com/advertise-here" target="_blank" style="text-decoration: none; color: inherit;">Advertisements</a>Code language: HTML, XML (xml)

This links the label “Advertisements” to example.com/advertise-here, opens the link in a new tab, removes the underline, and keeps the text color consistent with surrounding content while displaying it in italics. Add this code to the ad label field in Advanced Ads to make the label both clickable and styled to fit your site’s design.

Ad label settings in the Placements

Placement-level ad label settings are ideal when you want to control the label for specific ad locations on your site. This is useful if you need different labeling rules for different placements.

You can either:

• Enable the ad label globally and turn it off for specific placements, or
• Disable the ad label globally and activate it only for certain placements.

To adjust these settings, go to Advanced Ads > Placements and select Show All Options.

Note: Not all placements support ad labels. For example, the Header Code Placement (used for scripts like Facebook Pixels) does not have this option. By default, placements follow the settings from the General Settings tab.

You can also customize the position of the ad label (left, center, or right) for each placement. If you don’t set a position, the label will follow the alignment configured in the ad’s settings.

Please note that placement-level alignment overrides any position set in the ad’s own Layout/Output settings.

Ad label for specific ads

In addition to global settings, Advanced Ads lets you customize ad labels for individual ads. This is useful when you want more control over specific ads without changing the overall labeling rules.

For example, you might want to:

• Disable the label for an ad that already includes its own label.
• Avoid labeling internal content, like a newsletter signup form, as “advertisement” or “sponsored.”

On the settings page for each ad, you’ll find a field where you can enter custom label text. This allows you to use different terms for specific ads, such as “recommended” instead of “advertisement.”

This field also supports HTML input, so you can style or link the label as needed. To do this, make sure the HTML option is enabled in the General Settings under Ad Label Options.

Customizing the ad label with CSS

You can adjust the appearance of your ad label using CSS to better match your website’s design. The styling depends on your theme, but you can easily modify it by adding custom CSS.

Default HTML Markup

The ad label is displayed using the following HTML structure:

<div class="prefix-adlabel">Advertisements</div>Code language: HTML, XML (xml)

The class name starts with a prefix that you set in the ID prefix option under Advanced Ads > Settings > General. In this example, prefix- is just a placeholder. Make sure to replace it with the prefix you have configured.

This class can apply custom CSS rules to the ad label.

How to style the ad label

To customize the look of the ad label, add custom CSS to your WordPress theme. You can do this by navigating to Appearance > Customize > Additional CSS and pasting the code there. If you’re using a child theme, you can also add the CSS directly to your child theme’s style.css file.

For example, to center the text, make it bold, and change its color, use the following code:

.prefix-adlabel {
	color: #ff6600;
	text-align: center;
	font-weight: bold;
}Code language: CSS (css)

Replace prefix- with your actual prefix. If you named the prefix “custom,” the class would be custom-adlabel, and the CSS would look like this:

.custom-adlabel {
	color: #ff6600;
	text-align: center;
	font-weight: bold;
}Code language: CSS (css)

CSS rules for ad label customization

You can easily adjust the look and position of your ad labels using a few simple CSS rules. Here are some examples to help you get started.

Aligning the ad label

If your ad is centered but you want the label aligned to the left, use this:

.prefix-adlabel { text-align: left; }Code language: CSS (css)

Changing the font size

Want the label to appear less prominent? Just adjust the font size like this:

.prefix-adlabel { font-size: 0.8em; }Code language: CSS (css)

Moving the ad label below the ad

If you prefer the label to appear below the ad instead of above it, use the following CSS:

/* adjust the ad wrapper */

.prefix-top {
	position: relative; 
	margin-bottom: 20px; // depending on size
}

/* label element */

.prefix-adlabel {
	position: absolute;
	bottom: -20px; // depending on size
	left: 0px;
}Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

These adjustments help you maintain a consistent style while placing the labels exactly where you want them. Feel free to tweak the values to better match your design!

CSS styling using the custom code feature

You can also apply CSS styling directly to individual ads using the Custom Code feature in Advanced Ads Pro. This is useful if you want to make specific adjustments to just a few select ads instead of setting global styles in your child theme’s style.css file or through the WordPress Customizer.

To change the font size of an ad label, for example, add the following snippet to the Custom Code field of that particular ad. Make sure to wrap the CSS in a <style> tag:

<style>
	.setup-adlabel { font-size: 0.8em; }
</style>Code language: HTML, XML (xml)

Adjusting the ad label code or markup

You can adjust the markup of the label using the advanced-ads-custom-label filter.

Google AdSense and ad labels

When it comes to ad labeling, Google AdSense doesn’t require you to add a label if your ads can be clearly distinguished from other content. You have the flexibility to either leave the ad unlabeled or use one of the permitted advertisement labels.

However, if you decide to use ad labels, Google AdSense has strict guidelines that generally correspond to the FTC, EU, and ASA/CAP regulations explained above:

It’s important that visitors to your site are not misled in any way and are able to easily distinguish content from Google ads. This policy prohibits placing ads under misleading headings such as “resources” or “helpful links”. Publishers may only label ads with either “Advertisements” or “Sponsored Links”. No other variations are permitted.

Violations of this policy are frequently observed, particularly in sidebars where widgets often allow users to insert custom headlines by default. It’s crucial to either use the approved labels (“Advertisements” or “Sponsored Links”) or leave the ad unlabeled if it’s already distinguishable from your content.

Adding ad labels to AdSense Auto ads

AdSense Auto Ads are designed to automatically place ads on your site using machine learning, requiring no manual intervention. By default, these ads often include their own small labels, such as “Ad,” typically displayed as an overlay at the bottom right of the ad. Therefore, unless you’re worried that this format doesn’t satisfy FTC, EU, and ASA/CAP guidelines, you don’t need to take any additional steps to add labels to Auto Ads in most cases.

However, if you want to strictly adhere to regulations or customize or add your own ad labels for Auto Ads, you can achieve this with a simple CSS workaround. This allows you to inject a custom label above or below the ads without interfering with their automated functionality.

To add a label above every AdSense Auto Ad, use the following CSS code. You can insert it into the “Additional CSS” section of your WordPress theme’s customization settings or directly into your theme’s style.css file:

.google-auto-placed {
	font-size: 12px;
	font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;
	font-style: italic;
}

.google-auto-placed::before {
	content: "Advertisements";
}
Code language: CSS (css)

If you prefer to place the label below the ad instead, use this code:

.google-auto-placed::after {
	content: "Advertisements";
}Code language: CSS (css)

You can adjust the font size, style, or wording of the label as needed by modifying the CSS properties. For example, you could make the label more subtle by changing its color to gray:

.google-auto-placed {
	color: #808080;
}Code language: CSS (css)

This approach provides a simple and effective way to customize ad labels for Auto Ads while maintaining compliance with Google AdSense policies. Keep in mind that any modifications should not mislead users and should adhere to AdSense guidelines.

Frequently Asked Questions