This publication takes no affiliate commission, and says so on every page, because affiliate commission is one of the incentives it exists to explain. That position is not moral superiority. It is a design decision, taken because a publication that earns money when you buy something cannot credibly tell you when not to.
How the mechanism actually works
An affiliate link carries a tracking parameter identifying the publisher. When a reader clicks it and buys within a defined window, the sale is attributed to that publisher and a commission is paid, usually as a percentage of the sale value. The rate varies by retailer and category, and the window varies too.
Several parties sit in the chain. There is the retailer or brand running the programme, frequently an affiliate network administering it, the publisher or creator, and sometimes an agency managing the relationship. Money flows from the retailer's marketing budget, which means it comes from the price of the product, as described in the economics of a moisturiser.
What it changes, which is selection
The common defence of affiliate content is that commission does not change what a writer thinks about a product. Frequently that is true. It is also not the mechanism that matters. The effect operates on what gets covered at all, and on the shape of the content.
- Coverage follows programmes. A product sold only through a retailer with no affiliate programme is less likely to appear in a list than an equivalent product sold somewhere that pays.
- Formats favour purchase. Best of lists, dupes and comparison pieces convert. An article concluding that you do not need anything does not.
- Rates influence emphasis. Where categories pay different rates, the categories that pay more receive more attention over time, without any individual decision being made.
- Retailer choice follows commission. The link goes to the retailer that pays, which is not necessarily the cheapest.
- Update cycles follow revenue. Pages that earn get maintained. Pages that do not, decay.
None of this requires anyone to recommend a product they dislike. It is a filter applied before the recommending starts, and it is invisible to readers because the alternatives that were never considered leave no trace.
We may earn a small commission
That the publisher has a commercial relationship with a retailer or brand and is paid when readers buy through its links. Disclosure of this kind is required, and the wording is conventional.
The word small is doing no work at all: there is no threshold that makes a commission small, and rates are not disclosed.
It does not tell you the rate, the retailer, whether rates differ between the products listed, or whether any product in the piece pays more than the others. It does not tell you whether products without affiliate programmes were considered and dropped. It does not tell you whether the ranking correlates with the commission. It does not mean the recommendation is independent, only that the relationship has been declared.
A disclosure that actually informed you would state which links are commissioned, whether rates differ across the products listed, and whether any product was included or excluded for commercial reasons. Almost no publisher does this, because the disclosure requirement is satisfied by declaring the relationship rather than by describing its effect.
What the rules actually require
The core principle is that marketing communications must be obviously identifiable as such. Where content is controlled by a brand and paid for, it is advertising and must be labelled. Where a creator has a commercial relationship affecting what they say, that relationship must be made clear before the audience engages with the content, not buried at the end.
The 2024 reforms strengthened this. Hidden advertising, fake reviews and incentivised reviews presented as independent are addressed directly by the consumer provisions of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, with enforcement powers held by the Competition and Markets Authority. The ASA continues to handle advertising disclosure under the codes, and Trading Standards enforce consumer protection law.
| Arrangement | Who controls the content | What must be disclosed |
|---|---|---|
| Affiliate link | The publisher, who is paid only if a sale results | That a commercial relationship exists and links may earn commission |
| Paid partnership or advertorial | The brand, which has approval over the content | That it is advertising, clearly and before engagement |
| Gifted product | The creator, who received the product free and was not paid | That the product was gifted, where it may affect how the content is understood |
The middle row is the one most often mislabelled. Content the brand can approve is advertising, whatever it is called, and a small tag at the end of a caption is not disclosure before engagement.
Why recommendation media converged on this model
Display advertising pays poorly and declines with ad blocking. Subscriptions are hard to sell for buying advice. Affiliate commission pays for the exact action the content is designed to produce, which makes it the most efficient available model for anybody publishing recommendations.
Once one publisher adopts it, competitors must match the revenue or lose the ability to fund the work. The entire category then reorganises around purchasable conclusions, and content that does not end in a purchase becomes economically unviable.
That is why so much skincare journalism is a list. Not because writers prefer lists, but because a list is the format the funding mechanism rewards.
- Retailers. Buy demand at a fixed cost per sale, with no payment for coverage that does not convert
- Affiliate networks. Take a share of every commissioned transaction across the sector
- Publishers and creators. Fund editorial work through a model that pays reliably
- Brands without programmes. Receive systematically less coverage, regardless of merit
- Readers. Get abundant advice about what to buy and very little about what not to
A description of the economics of recommendation media. It is not an allegation about any specific publisher or creator.
Reviews, ratings and the incentive underneath them
Reviews on retail sites operate in the same economy. Retailers benefit from a high average rating. Brands run seeding programmes that supply free product in exchange for reviews. Review syndication means the same reviews appear across multiple retailers. Incentivised reviews are permitted only where the incentive is disclosed, and fake reviews are prohibited outright.
The practical reading discipline is to ignore the average and read the distribution. Look at the one and two star reviews, look for mentions of texture change, irritation or a formula that seems different from a previous purchase, and check whether reviews cluster around a launch date, which usually indicates a seeding campaign rather than organic use.
How to read commissioned advice usefully
The point is not to dismiss it. Some of the best product writing in Britain is funded this way, by people who work hard and disclose properly. The point is to read it with the mechanism in view.
- Ask what is missing. Products with no affiliate programme rarely appear. Their absence is not a verdict.
- Notice the format. A list of ten is a commercial format. A piece explaining a mechanism is usually not.
- Check whether the piece ever says do not buy this, and whether it ever says buy nothing. Publications that cannot say either are constrained.
- Follow the link destination. The retailer chosen is a commercial decision, and it may not be the cheapest.
- Treat gifted and paid content as advertising, which it is, whatever the label says.
And apply the same test to this publication. Our funding is a paid supplier register and newsletter sponsorship, both published with rate cards and with a written list of what the money cannot buy. That is the correct thing to check, and it is set out in full on the about page.