About Affiliate Links in Mailchimp

Affiliate marketing as an industry is prohibited under our Terms of Use, but affiliate links are usually fine to use in Mailchimp emails. We understand that the difference here isn’t super clear, so we're happy to provide further explanation.

In this article, you'll learn why we prohibit affiliate marketing in Mailchimp and how that's different from including affiliate links in your emails.

Definitions

First, let's be clear what we mean when we talk about "affiliate marketing" versus "affiliate links."

Affiliate marketing

A business model in which marketers are typically paid commission to generate leads or sales for a third party.

Affiliate links

Links that direct to a third-party, but do not market on behalf of that third party. Often, affiliate links are used in the context of a partnership between two independent vendors or businesses.

Why we prohibit affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketers are generating business for someone else, so there's no real obligation to maintain relationships with contacts they may have in Mailchimp. This isn't the type of marketing Mailchimp is meant for.

Affiliate links, on the other hand, are commonly used in marketing of all kinds. For example, if you're a blogger, you might link to, or promote, the website of one of your sponsors. As long as the URLs you use aren't denylisted and your main message isn't centered around affiliate links, you shouldn't run into issues using them in your emails.

How we treat affiliate links

Although affiliate links in general are fine to use in Mailchimp, we have to be careful not to allow denylisted URLs of any kind. Links to denylisted URLs can cause damage to our reputation with internet service providers, and negatively impact the reliability of our service.

Our system automatically scans email content for denylisted URLs. If we detect any issues, we'll stop the email and suspend the account while we review it. We understand that you may at some point accidentally link to a denylisted URL, so we always do our best to resolve these issues as quickly as we can. However, if we determine a user has intentionally violated our Terms of Use, we may be forced to close the account permanently.

What you need to do

It’s common to, at some point, accidentally use a denylisted link in an email. Here are some things you can do to help prevent this from happening.

• Assess Your Affiliate Links
  Advertisements for another company in your email should appear under your branding, be in your voice, and be relevant to your contacts. Recommending products or services is also perfectly acceptable as long as the content and industries aren’t prohibited under our Terms of Use and Acceptable Use Policy.
• Research Domain Reputation
  Many ISPs don't make their denylists public, so it's hard to be absolutely sure an affiliate link isn't on a denylist somewhere. But these resources can help you determine the reputation of a domain before you link to it in your email.
  Google Safe Browsing Lookup API
  SURBL
  URIBL
  Spamcop
  Spamhaus