How to correctly label advertising in 2025: detailed step-by-step instructions on the example of OZON's ODI

Mandatory labeling of advertisements - theoretical part

Internet advertising labeling is the process of registering and accounting for Internet advertising, which includes obtaining an identifier (token, tag) for each advertising material from the ORD (Advertising Activity Operator). With the subsequent implementation of this tag into this material. With indication of data on the advertiser.

All of your advertising must be labeled as of September 1, 2022, when the changes to the advertising labeling law (Federal Law 38-FZ). The law says that this is necessary to ensure transparency and control over advertising activities on the Internet. The process of labeling advertising involves the submission of MONTHLY reporting on display statistics. This is submitted to the ORD, which then transmits it to the ERIR (Unified Register of Internet Advertising)

Who should do the labeling of advertisements?

Someone on that list:

• Advertisers are those who advertise their goods or services.
• Advertisers - legal entities, individuals and individual entrepreneurs who are engaged in advertising placement.
• Advertising systems - platforms such as social media and messengers that provide advertising services.
• Platforms are information resources that distribute advertisements.
• Intermediaries - agencies and freelancers involved in advertising on behalf of their clients.

The specific performer is specified in the Advertising Services Agreement. If you run an advertising campaign through a Cabinet in one of Russia's social networks, or buy advertising through an official intermediary (an advertising exchange such as eLama or Telega.In), you will not have to worry about how to label advertising at all. These services take care of all the operations with ODS and reporting. And it's free of charge (included in the price of the commission). Read also our article "How to advertise in Telegram channels" (yes, ads on foreign sites should be labeled too).

What needs to be labeled as advertising?

Let's just say: in general - everything. Except for informational content, i.e. publications that have no commercial purpose and do not promote a specific product or service. That is, the list of services on your site, catalog of goods on the site can not be marked.

In official language, advertising subject to labeling is any material that has a commercial component, i.e. is aimed at promoting goods or services. This can be both paid and barter transactions.

Here are basic examples of what to label as advertising:

• Advertising banners on websites.
• Text ads with promotional links.
• Video and audio clips with promotional content.

Social Media:

• Posts and storizas with promotional mentions and links.
• Publications with promo codes and direct links to the product or service.

Bloggers and Influencers:

• Any materials (videos, posts, photos) created within the framework of contractual relations, including barter relations, with advertisers.

Marketplace Advertising:

• Utilizing marketplace advertising tools, such as promoting products through advertising campaigns.

Contextual advertising:

• Advertisements in systems such as Yandex.Direct, Google Ads and similar.

Messenger advertising:

• Ads placed in advertising channels and messenger groups.

*The amount of savings depends on your project.

When to label self-promotion

According to Article 18.1 of the Advertising Law, anything that is an Internet advertisement must be labeled. This means that self-promotion is not exempt from the labeling requirement where it is disseminated on the Internet and meets the criteria of advertising:

• Information about products or services on their own websites and social media, if it has the purpose of drawing attention to the advertised object.
• Banners and ads on your own web resources that are aimed at promoting products or services.
• Publications with promo codes and links to your own products or services.

Liability and penalties for unlabeled advertising

Administrative liability is provided for in the event of a violation of the requirements for the labeling of Internet advertising. The amount of fines depends on the type of violation and on who committed it: an individual, a legal entity or an official.

The main types of violations and the amounts of fines for them:

• Violations of the procedure for submitting information to ERIR:
• Didn't submit information about the advertisement.
• Violated the filing deadline (30 days after advertising).
• Submitted incomplete, inaccurate or irrelevant information.

Penalties:

• For citizens: from 10,000 to 30,000 rubles.
• For officials: from 30,000 to 100,000 rubles.
• For legal entities: from 200,000 to 500,000 rubles.

Advertising Identifier Violations:

• The token was not received and not mentioned in the advertisement.
• The token is incorrectly placed.

Penalty for unlabeled advertising:

• For citizens: from 30,000 to 100,000 rubles.
• For officials: from 100,000 to 200,000 rubles.
• For legal entities: from 200,000 to 500,000 rubles.

All participants in the advertising process are responsible for labeling Internet advertising. They may allocate areas of responsibility in the contract. In the event of a violation, the person who was responsible for this stage of labeling under the contract will be fined. Only the advertiser can completely relieve himself of responsibility for labeling, if it is stipulated in the contract. That is, if he concluded a contract with an intermediary to distribute advertising and clearly stipulated in it that the responsibility for labeling is assigned to the counterparty, the process of obtaining tokens in the ORD and reporting, he is not engaged in. Note, an advertising agent can also be a freelancer, but only in the status of a sole proprietor. No self-employed.

Our article, in the remaining part, is intended specifically for advertisers who have decided to place advertising themselves, having concluded a contract with the site (blogger, site owner), as well as the site owners themselves, who have decided to advertise their services or for some reason have taken over the process of labeling third-party advertising (and monthly reporting).

The process of "labeling ads to advertisers" is not very complicated. It is the filing of monthly reports that will have to be fiddled with. Theoretically, it is believed that scary, invisible program robots of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (or Roskomnadzor, or NKVD, or ... in general, any of them) prowl the vast expanses of the Internet and record violations of Federal Law 38-FZ. We do not think that in this case we should rely on the folk wisdom "the strictness of our laws is compensated by the non-binding nature of their enforcement". Court practice on violations already have.

So let's get to the practical part, let's tell you how to get a token for labeling ads.

Practical part - how to self-label advertising, step-by-step instructions on the example of OZON ODD

Full Register of Advertising Data Operators is on the Roskomnadzor website.

1. Registration on ODS OZON

Follow this link ord.ozon.ru, register and confirm your email.

When registering, you will need to submit your details to Ozone ODS and wait for the Security Service to verify your documents. This will take up to 2-3 days.

Pay attention to the rates.

2. Adding a site

In your personal cabinet, go to the Platforms tab and add the address of the resource where your advertising material will be placed. A platform is a website, application, page in a social network or Telegram. The name is arbitrary.

Each site must be added separately.

3. Adding a counterparty

A counterparty, in case you are a direct advertiser, is a party with whom you have contracted to place ads (blogger, admin of a channel or group, website owner).

Click on the Counterparties tab and click the "Add" button.

Fill in the fields with the information that the counterparty has given you.

4. Adding a contract

Click the Contracts tab and click the Add button.

Fill in the fields in the form that opens.

5. Adding creativity

On the Creatives tab, click on Add and fill in the fields.

In the Advertising campaign type field, select the desired type (CPM, CPC, CPA or Other). Specify the object of advertising (your product/service), the form of advertising (Text, Video, Audio). For social networks most often choose Text and Graphic block. Add a target link (where the ad will lead), enter a text ad post and upload a creative (ad picture). Add a brief description of what is shown in the picture.

When you click Add at the end, a box will pop up that says "Creative data has been saved. Assigned token..." and an 8-digit set of Latin letters and numbers. This is the token, which will also appear in the table of all your uploaded creatives in the Creatives tab. It is this token that you should integrate into your promotional materials.

That's basically it. Now you know how to get a token for advertising, how to tokenize ads from bloggers, how to tokenize ads yourself.

Although, wait, you have to tell me exactly where to insert this token.

How advertising should be labeled

The token can be placed in different locations depending on the format of the advertising creative.

• In the clickable link: https://адрес_вашего_сайта/?erid=XXX where erid=XXX is the token.
• In the text of the post or article: erid: XXX.
• When publishing images, the token as erid: XXX can be placed on top of the image or in the drop-down menu of an advertisement.
• In videos, the token is integrated on top of the video, at the beginning of the video, in the description of the video.
• In a video circle in Telegram, the token can be placed in text in the message following the video or in a reply to a post with that video.
• In Stories, it is recommended to place the token on top of the video at the beginning of the video.
• In a podcast, the token can be placed in text in the podcast release description.
• In audio ads, it is recommended to place the token in the audio player interface while the ad insert is playing.

Here's what a labeled ad looks like:

And there's a token hiding in the link:

Conclusion

From this article, we learned that you need to tokenize ads and how to do it. To mark an advertisement, you need to get a token, specify the token in the advertisement and add the word "Advertisement", as well as information about the advertiser. Tagging is mandatory for all online advertising in Russia. Before launching it, an agreement with an advertising data operator (ADO) is required, which transmits information to the unified register of Internet advertising (ERIR). Fines of up to 700,000 rubles are provided for the absence of labeling, depending on the violation. Labeling responsibilities are shared between participants in the advertising chain, and only the advertiser can completely absolve itself of responsibility if this is specified in the contract.

Frequently Asked Questions