How can you tell if an influencer is paid for a recommendation?

Placement matters too. A label you only see after tapping “more” or scrolling does not meet the guidelines. In stories it belongs on every promotional story slide, not just the first. A general line in the profile saying the account contains advertising is not enough either: each post needs its own label.

Under § 5a(4) of the German Unfair Competition Act (UWG), the commercial purpose of a commercial practice, such as a post, has to be made clear unless it is already directly obvious from the circumstances. It is a breach if leaving this out is likely to lead consumers or other market participants to a decision they would not otherwise have taken. Someone who promotes another company and neither receives nor is promised money or a similar benefit from it is not acting for a commercial purpose under the act.

The last sentence of the provision sets up a presumption: the law assumes a benefit was received or promised. A creator who says they got nothing has to show this credibly.

On top of that, § 22(1) of the Interstate Media Treaty (MStV) and § 6(1) no. 1 of the German Digital Services Act (Digitale-Dienste-Gesetz, DDG) require advertising and other commercial communication to be clearly recognisable as such. For video and audio, the media authorities’ guidelines also cite §§ 8 and 10 MStV, which apply by virtue of § 74 sentence 1 MStV. The state media authorities (Landesmedienanstalten) say they supervise the advertising rules for broadcasting and the internet. According to their introduction, the guidelines, which the table above is based on, reflect how they supervise in practice.

In 2021 the Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof) decided three Instagram cases, under what was then § 5a(6) UWG. The same rule is now the first sentence of § 5a(4), in almost the same words. One post, for which the influencer had received a benefit from the manufacturer, was not labelled clearly enough as advertising and so breached competition law. In the other two cases there was no benefit for the posts in question, and there was no breach.

A haul video or a review with pros and cons of products the creator bought themselves is usually not advertising under the German media authorities’ guidelines. It is different when a product is praised in a way meant to drive sales. Then an advertising intent can be assumed, even without a contract. The guidelines name signs of such intent, grouped here in three. None of them proves payment on its own:

• How it is said: gushing praise and salesy language, plus calls to buy
• What comes with it: prices, where to buy, or affiliate links
• How often and why: the same products or brands again and again, no apparent reason for the post

Only 34% of the profiles checked made the disclosure visible straight away, without having to tap “read more” or scroll. Germany took part in the check.

1. Save the post: copy the link and take a screenshot that shows the account, the date and the content.
2. Check the account’s imprint (Impressum) to see which German federal state the provider is based in.
3. Report the post to that state’s media authority (Landesmedienanstalt). This is how the media authorities describe it on their “Programmbeschwerde” (complaints) page, which also lists the contacts. They can open supervisory proceedings or impose a fine for breaches.
4. If you still want to buy the product, compare the price in other shops first and read reviews that do not come from the creator.

If a creator’s link brings you to a wyrld storefront, the creator and wyrld both earn through affiliate links: depending on the shop, from your click, your purchase or both. Creators choose the products in their storefront themselves, and also whether to join a wyrld Boost campaign. In Boost, a brand provides a budget and creators feature its products in their own videos and storefronts. Creators are responsible for labelling their own posts on Instagram, TikTok or YouTube, and they label Boost campaign videos as advertising.

You usually buy directly from the shop, at no extra cost. When a creator adds a product to their storefront, wyrld recognises the brand, name and variant, looks for the same item across more than 90,000 partner shops and creates an affiliate link for each offer it finds. That is why the links to the shops are marked “Affiliate links” on the product pages. If wyrld finds several offers, they appear side by side with prices. Shops where the creator and wyrld earn more come first. The other shops follow by price, cheapest first. A few lower-ranked shops and refurbished offers come last. The cheapest new offer is labelled “Best price” even if it is further down the list, and the buy button at the top of the product page leads to the first shop in the list.

If you are a creator yourself, the product pages in your storefront show your community openly that you earn, and list the offers wyrld found side by side with prices. For many, price is what counts: in a 2022 Bitkom survey, 65% of online shoppers in Germany named the lowest price as a decisive factor when choosing a shop. You add the link to a product, and wyrld creates the affiliate links for you, without you signing up to any network. Depending on the shop, you earn per click, per sale or both, settled every month with a self-billing credit note (Gutschrift). The wyrld creator terms do not require exclusivity, so from wyrld’s side your storefront can run alongside your existing affiliate programmes. If you work with an agency, it gets its own dashboard and maintains your storefront with you.