Risky claims build up quietly: a supplier's description pasted in, an old page nobody reread, a customer quote added to a banner. This guide gives you a repeatable way to audit your product pages against US advertising rules for health-related products. This is general information, not legal advice.
Decide what counts as a page
The FTC's Health Products Compliance Guidance defines advertising broadly. It covers internet and digital content, packaging and labeling, social media and influencer marketing. Audit everything a shopper sees, not just the description field.
- Product title and name: A name can imply a disease claim by itself
- Description and bullet points: The main copy
- Images, charts and badges: The FTC counts these as part of the claim
- Featured reviews and testimonials: The ones you choose to display
- Linked content: Blog posts and pages your product page points to
List every claim, including the implied ones
The FTC's guidance closes with two steps for marketers. The first is to consider the express and implied messages a consumer is likely to take from the ad. For each page, write the claims down as a shopper would read them.
| On the page | Claim a shopper may take away |
|---|---|
| "Supports immune health" beside a photo of a sneezing child | Protects against colds |
| Lab coats and molecule graphics | Clinically proven to work |
| "All-natural" | Safe, with no side effects |
Check the evidence for each claim
The second step in the FTC's guidance is to review the support for each claim. Health claims need competent and reliable scientific evidence, and the FTC says animal studies, lab studies and customer anecdotes are generally not enough for a health benefit.
- Sound: The research is well designed
- Relevant: It tested your product or ingredient, at your dose, for your claim
- In context: It fits the wider body of evidence, not one outlier study
- On file: You hold it before the page goes live
Sort each claim
Give every claim one of three outcomes so the audit ends in action. Disease claims on a supplement or cosmetic are the first to remove. See supplement claims and cosmetic versus drug claims for where that line sits.
- Keep: Truthful, supported, and clear on its own
- Rewrite: Supported in a narrower form, so narrow the wording to match
- Remove: Unsupported, or a claim to treat, cure or prevent a disease
Fix disclosures, then schedule the next audit
Where a claim needs a qualifier, the FTC expects it to be clear and conspicuous: hard to miss and easy to understand. A footnote, a link or a line that contradicts the headline does not do the job. Then set a rhythm, because pages change.
- Placement: Put the qualifier beside the claim
- Wording: Avoid vague hedges like "may" when the evidence is thin
- New products: Audit before launch
- Supplier copy: Audit before you paste it in
- Everything else: Recheck on a fixed schedule
Doing this at scale
ContentGuard scans your product descriptions and classifies each claim as safe, risky or prohibited against the rule profile you choose: US Dietary Supplement, US Cosmetics/OTC Drug or Generic FTC. It cites the governing FDA or FTC rule, scores each page and proposes a rewrite you can apply in one click. It is a screening tool, not a substitute for legal review. See ContentGuard.