Acceptable Use Policy

Campaign Refinery is for permission-based business owners.

We're committed to helping our customers get the most out of their subscribers who were added with the explicit permission of each contact. To protect our platform and overall deliverability and help ensure the success of our customers, there are specific industries, niches, and types of content that we do not allow at Campaign Refinery.

Guiding Metrics

Campaign Refinery is a very metric-driven company and uses specific benchmarks as a first pass when evaluating the fit of any particular customer. Above beyond the content, industries, and other types of prohibited content and businesses outlined later in this document, we may decide to terminate an account for exceeding these thresholds.

  • Open Rates: Anything below 10%
  • Bounce Rates: Anything above 10%
  • Complaint Rates: Anything above 0.1%

If any of these metrics are underperforming, an account will either be placed on a Performance Improvement Plan or potentially terminated altogether, regardless of if they comply with our other content and industry-related guidelines.

The Approval Process

Most new accounts must go through our approval process to ensure optimum deliverability and prevent abusive behavior that may impact other customers on the platform. This process is required to maintain the high integrity that Campaign Refinery is known for.

By creating an account with Campaign Refinery, you agree to go through this process.

When you review your account, we reserve the right to deny your account.

Prohibited Content

We reserve the right to close an account at any time, including but not limited to inappropriate use.

The following is considered "inappropriate use" of a Campaign Refinery account:

  • Content that in any way exploits minors under 18 years of age.
  • Viruses, worms, phishing, malware, or other potentially harmful software exist.
  • Purchased subscriber lists, scraped lists, or any other non-permission-based list collection (including "co-reg" lists where subscribers are simultaneously shared across multiple lists.)
  • Disguised self-identify, website, or industry.
  • Online pharmacies or the sale of prescription medicine.
  • Adult content that is non-education or non-artistic.
  • Make-money-online or get-rich-quick schemes.
  • CPA affiliate type sites or similar affiliate types, network marketing sites, affiliate educational offers, insurance sales, or promotions.
  • Content that may incite violence, illegal activity, or contain hate speech.
  • Misrepresenting or impersonating another individual, business, or association with an individual or company.
  • Content or actions that violate the CAN-SPAM Act or other anti-spam laws.
  • Poor performance due to your list collection methods or low-quality content.
  • Any content reported to us as unsolicited or may be perceived as spam.
  • Unoriginal content, plagiarized or copied from another individual or organization.
  • We do not allow content that we deem potentially harmful or misleading.
  • We do not allow Campaign Refinery forms or other lead collection methods to be used to collect passwords. We also don't allow the storage of subscribers' password information within your Campaign Refinery account.

Important: If you are found to violate the above terms, your account may be closed immediately and without prior notice. A refund will not be provided. Export of any account data or details will be at Campaign Refinery's discretion.

Industries and Content Subject to Additional Scrutiny

In addition to the strictly prohibited categories above, there are industries and niches that we could be a better fit for or may allow some versions of but not others. We will evaluate on an account-by-account basis. These include, but are not limited to:

  • Pure Affiliate Marketing: We do not restrict the use of affiliate links in emails as long as they are appropriately marked and used responsibly. However, we do not allow content that is 100% affiliate-based, including selling other tools, software, 'business in a box', etc.
  • Financial or Educational offers: We allow educational information around most subjects. However, we do not allow content including offers for educational grants or scholarships, refinance mortgages, loan offers, or insurance.
  • Trading and Crypto or Bitcoin: We allow educational information on trading, financial markets, bitcoin, etc. However, we do not allow content that sells or gives (through purchase or lottery) monetary or similar funds or content that promises wealth or get-rich-quick offers. We allow businesses to promote NFTs through their email alongside their regular content, but we don't allow senders who are solely NFT sellers.
  • Gambling or betting-related sites. We allow email content that discusses betting, but we don't allow content that facilitates gambling or betting, regardless of legality.
  • CBD, Marijuana, or Supplement Marketing: We allow educational content and marketing materials surrounding supplements, and allow the same regarding Marijuana, provided it is legal in the account owner's and Subscriber's jurisdictions. However, we do not allow such content where it is deemed illegal, nor do we allow misleading or potentially harmful information or 'magic in a bottle' types of promises or offers.
  • Weapons: We allow content regarding weapons but strictly prohibit anything detailing how to manufacture a weapon or any content regarding or soliciting the sale of any weapon.
  • Multi-level Marketing: We allow the promotion and education of multi-level marketing products. However, we do not allow pyramid schemes, soliciting new members, or misrepresenting the product or program in any way.

Account Health

In addition to the above, we continually monitor accounts to ensure best practices are followed. We review bounces, spam complaints, and unsubscribe rates to ensure accounts operate within our terms. Elevated bounce, complaint, or unsubscribe rates may result in a manual review, suspension, or account termination. Any account closed for this reason will not be entitled to a refund or export of any data or details, including Subscriber lists.

Permission

Campaign Refinery is exclusively a permission-based email marketing platform. We require that all Subscribers have given direct permission to receive marketing emails from the sender or have purchased an item within the past 12 months and consented to receive emails at the time of purchase. Customers are required to have proof of permission for each Subscriber on their list. For Subscribers collected through Campaign Refinery forms etc., Subscriber engagement and review of the page language may serve as proof of permission.

Report

If you happen to encounter a Campaign Refinery form that doesn't work, please use this form to report it. If you receive an email sent through Campaign Refinery that violates any of the above, please forward it to abuse [at] campaignrefinery [dot] com (abuse@campaignrefinery.com). We look into every report, but unfortunately, we can't reply to all submissions.

Conduct

We, from product specialists to engineers to directors, do our best daily to support our customers. We are committed to our customer's success, being as helpful as possible, and treating each customer respectfully. Our team expects the same in return. We do not tolerate any abusive, threatening, or demeaning behavior or communication directed at any team member, as such conduct is grounds for termination of the account.

Termination of Account

Suppose your account is canceled for any of the above reasons, including prohibited content, low performance, poor collection methods, or any other compliance reason. In that case, you will not be eligible for a refund and will not be allowed to open a new account.