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Affiliates

Affiliate Marketing Guidelines

How to disclose, what you may claim, where you may promote, and the practices that end an affiliate account.

Last updated on October 25, 2026.

Promote ACADA however you like, as long as a reader can see you earn commission, everything you say is true, and nobody is tricked into clicking. Say "I earn a commission if you join through this link" next to the link, every time. Quote what a course page says and not more. Buy no ads on our name or an instructor's. Send no spam. Refer real people who chose to join, and nobody who was paid to. Breaking these rules goes up the enforcement ladder; faking referrals ends your account at once.

This summary is for orientation only. The sections below are the operative terms.

1. What this covers

These guidelines are the operative rules for how an affiliate promotes acada.ac and its courses. They are part of the Affiliate Agreement with ACADA L.L.C., a Tennessee limited liability company (ACADA, we); breaking them is breaking that agreement. They apply wherever your link or code appears: your site, your videos, your posts, your messages, your ads, and anything written for you by a tool or an AI. The figures behind the programme are in Affiliate Commission & Payouts.

2. Say that you earn commission

The rule. Wherever your link appears, say plainly, next to it, that you earn a commission if the reader joins through it. Every placement carries its own disclosure; a note on an "about" page or at the bottom of a site does not cover the links elsewhere on it.

  • Words that work. "I earn a commission if you join ACADA through this link." "Affiliate link: I'm paid if you sign up." Where space is short, "#ad" or "affiliate link" beside the link.
  • Words that do not. "#sp", "#affiliate" or "#partner" on their own, a disclosure hidden behind "more", in a colour that vanishes, or after the point where a reader has already clicked.
  • Video and audio. Say it out loud where the link is mentioned, and write it in the description too.

Example of a violation. A "recommended tools" page lists your ACADA link with the others and says nothing about commission.

Consequence. A written warning and a request to fix it; restrictions if it is not fixed or happens again.

3. Tell the truth

The rule. Say nothing about ACADA or a course that is not true, and promise nothing. You may quote what a course page says about itself, and you may describe your own experience honestly. You may not:

  • promise results, jobs, grades or income, for the reader or for yourself as an affiliate: our own figures are arithmetic, not forecasts, and yours must be too;
  • call a course, an instructor or a certificate accredited, licensed, official, verified or endorsed by anyone, unless the course page says so itself, which it does not;
  • invent reviews, student numbers or outcomes, or dress your own opinion up as fact;
  • describe a course the way its instructor does not.

Example of a violation. "Finish this course and you'll be earning six figures as a developer within a year."

Consequence. A written warning; restrictions or closure for a claim that is repeated or that misleads people into paying.

4. Naming the relationship

The rule. Call yourself what you are. "I'm an ACADA affiliate" and "affiliate of ACADA" are right. "Official partner", "ACADA ambassador", "team ACADA", "ACADA representative", and anything else that suggests we employ you, made your content or endorsed it, is not. Do not present yourself as us: no domain, handle, page name, sender name or profile that reads as ACADA's, and none of our marks in a code, as the Account & Identity policy's rule on impersonation applies to affiliates too.

Example of a violation. A Twitter account named "ACADA Deals" with our logo as its picture.

Consequence. A written warning and the name changed; closure at once if the account was used to mislead people.

5. Where you may promote

The rule. Your own site, newsletter, channels and profiles are yours to use. Other people's spaces, such as forums, groups and comment sections, only where their rules allow promotion and only where the link belongs to the conversation. Never on a page or channel that carries content our Community Guidelines or Course Content Policy prohibit. Nothing aimed at children under 13, and nothing placed in spaces made for children, in line with Age & Child Safety.

Example of a violation. Posting your link in the comments of a hundred unrelated videos, or on a site that distributes pirated courses.

Consequence. A written warning; restrictions or closure for a pattern.

6. Email and messages

The rule. Email your link only to people who asked to hear from you. No bought, scraped or borrowed lists, an unsubscribe in every message, honoured at once, and your own name as the sender, never ours. No unsolicited direct messages, on ACADA or anywhere else: the Community Guidelines' rule on spam applies to messages that carry your link.

Example of a violation. Messaging every member of a study group on ACADA with your link.

Consequence. Restrictions on messaging at once, then the ladder.

7. Paid advertising

The rule. You may advertise your own content that links to ACADA. You may not bid on, or target, ACADA's name, our marks, misspellings of them, a course's title or an instructor's name in any search or social advertising. An ad must not look like it comes from us, must carry the disclosure in section 2 or land on a page that does, and must not link straight to acada.ac in a way that hides that an affiliate placed it.

Example of a violation. A search ad on the keyword "acada courses" pointing at your link.

Consequence. The ads taken down and a written warning; closure if they run again.

8. Codes, coupons and incentives

The rule. Our discount codes are personal to the member they were issued to; you may not publish, sell or trade any ACADA code, and your link is not a discount and may not be listed on coupon or deal sites as one. Where a course's instructor funds a discount for buyers who come through an affiliate, you may say so next to your link. Offer nothing of value for joining through your link: no cash, credit, gifts, rebates or "I'll pay you back". Something you made, such as a guide, a template or a call with you, is fine to offer.

Example of a violation. "Sign up with my link and I'll send you $5 back."

Consequence. A written warning; commissions from paid sign-ups reversed; closure for a scheme.

9. Clicks and accounts

The rule. Every referral must be a real person who clicked your link knowingly and chose to join. Not you, your other accounts or your household. No forced clicks, hidden links, iframes, redirects, cookie stuffing or scripts that set a referral without a genuine click. No bots and no traffic bought by the click. The visitor's choice on our join page is final; you may not work around it.

Example of a violation. Embedding your join link invisibly on a page so that every visitor is tagged as your referral.

Consequence. This is fraud: your affiliate account is closed at once, commissions from it are withheld whether or not they had cleared, and the Fraud & Scams policy applies.

10. Our name and logo

The rule. Use the ACADA name as text, and the logo from acada.ac/brand: unaltered, not recoloured, not combined with your own mark, and never as your own profile picture or brand. The Trademark policy sets out the rest, and the licence to use them in the Affiliate Agreement ends when the agreement does.

Example of a violation. A course landing page of your own with our logo in the header, styled like acada.ac.

Consequence. A written warning and the page changed; closure if it is used to pass your page off as ours.

11. What happens when a rule is broken

  • The ladder. For anything in these guidelines except section 9, we follow the Account Enforcement & Appeals policy: a written warning, then restrictions, then closure of your affiliate account. Commissions that had already cleared are paid; commissions still inside the hold that came from the promotion that broke the rule may be reversed, and we tell you when they are.
  • Fraud. Section 9, and anything else in the Affiliate Agreement's list, closes your affiliate account at once, and commissions from the fraudulent referrals are withheld whether or not they had cleared.
  • Appeals. Every decision can be appealed under that policy.

12. Reporting an affiliate

Anyone can report a promotion that breaks these rules by writing to support@acada.ac with the link, or a screenshot, and where they saw it. We look into every report and act under section 11. We do not tell the reporter what we did.

13. Changes to these guidelines

When we change these guidelines, we change the date shown at the top. If a change adds a rule or a consequence, we post a notice in the app at least 14 days before it takes effect, and email every affiliate as the Affiliate Agreement provides.

14. Related policies