Also known as: Marketing approval, Creative approval, Compliance sign-off
Compliance Approval is the mandatory review in which a broker's legal or compliance team audits an affiliate's websites, ad copy, landing pages, and creatives — and formally clears them — before any campaign can go live. It confirms your marketing meets the financial-promotion rules of the broker's regulator so neither party breaks the law.
Because forex, CFDs, and other leveraged products are heavily regulated, a broker is legally responsible for what its partners publish in its name. Regulators like the FCA, CySEC, and ASIC treat an affiliate's landing page as the broker's own financial promotion. If your page says the wrong thing, the broker is the one fined — so they gate every creative through approval before it ever reaches a trader.
Approval typically covers required risk warnings, banned words, accurate product descriptions, correct licensing details, and honest performance framing. A CySEC-regulated broker, for example, requires the standard risk disclosure — such as "XX% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider" — to appear clearly on the creative. Miss it and the material is rejected.
Approval is not a one-time event. Material changes to a page, a new promotion, or a new geo usually need re-approval, and brokers audit live affiliate pages periodically. Passing once does not exempt you from staying compliant afterward.
You submit your creatives — landing page URLs, banner sets, email copy, and any paid-ad text — through the broker's affiliate portal or to a compliance contact. The team reviews them against the regulator's financial-promotion standards and their own house rules, then returns an approval, a rejection with required edits, or a conditional approval pending fixes.
Once approved, you may run only the exact version that was cleared. Swapping the headline, adding a bonus claim, or changing the risk warning invalidates the approval and can breach the partnership agreement. Sophisticated brokers version-control approved creatives and periodically re-scan live affiliate sites, so an unapproved change discovered in an audit can suspend your account even if the original was fine.
Draft copy with visible risk warnings, no banned words, accurate product and licensing details.
Send landing pages, banners, and ad copy through the affiliate portal or your compliance contact.
The legal team checks the material against the regulator's promotion rules and house policy.
Address flagged issues — missing disclosures, misleading claims — and resubmit.
Run exactly what was cleared; re-submit before changing headlines, offers, or geos.
Why it matters for partnership: Regulated brokers terminate affiliates who guarantee profits, hide risk warnings, or run unapproved creatives. Build a proactive relationship with compliance so your marketing converts hard yet clears review — and your account and commissions survive audits.
An affiliate promoting a CySEC-regulated broker submits a Google Ads landing page. Compliance rejects it twice: first for missing the "73% of retail CFD accounts lose money" warning, then for the phrase "turn $500 into steady income." After removing the income claim and adding the warning at the top and footer, the page clears in 48 hours — and the affiliate reuses the approved template across future campaigns to speed up every later review.
Place mandatory risk warnings visibly at the top and bottom of every landing page before you submit, and keep a compliant master template — reusing pre-approved structure turns each new review into a formality.
Slipping banned words like "guaranteed," "risk-free," or "easy money" into ad copy, which gets the material rejected and, if it goes live, gets the affiliate account suspended by a top-tier regulator's broker.
Anywhere from a few hours to several business days depending on the broker and the creative's complexity. Clean submissions with visible risk warnings clear fastest.
The most common reasons are missing or hidden risk warnings, banned words like guaranteed or risk-free, misleading performance claims, or incorrect licensing details. Fix the flagged items and resubmit.
Yes. Material changes — new headlines, offers, geos, or removed disclosures — invalidate the original approval. Submit the new version before it goes live.
Not automatically. Each broker's regulator, licensing details, and required warnings differ, so every broker approves its own creatives separately even if the design is identical.
It breaches your partnership agreement. Brokers audit live affiliate pages, and an unapproved creative can lead to voided commissions or account termination.
Regulators hold the broker responsible for its affiliates' promotions, which is why approval is strict. But the affiliate still loses the account and earnings when it goes wrong.
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