Rokt Policies overview
Rokt prides itself in connecting customers with relevant offers and brands in the ecommerce environment. The purpose of these policies is to define what content and practices are permitted. We set out to define and enforce these policies to ensure a safe, consistent and healthy ecosystem that delivers sustainable value for our clients and their customers.
Rokt reserves the right to reject, remove or exclude content for any reason, and our policies are subject to change at any time without notice. We use a combination of Rokt AI and human evaluation to maintain compliance. Content that is already live is subject to review at all times. Rokt regularly reviews changes in laws, norms, and industry standards, and will revise these policies as we deem appropriate.
Accuracy & Consent
Rokt strives to deliver a relevant experience to customers and believes accuracy and consent is fundamental to this endeavor. As a result, one of our primary goals is to ensure the customer fully understands and consents to any offer upon engaging. We accomplish and enforce that in a handful of ways, detailed below.
Rhetorical tests
When a customer views an offer served by Rokt, creatives must include sufficient detail to answer the following questions to generate valid consent:
- What brand am I engaging with?
- What am I being offered - product, service, discount, or offer?
- What are the relevant considerations associated with that offer?
Accuracy and misrepresentation
All campaigns at Rokt must:
- Be fair, accurate, transparent, and truthful.
- Be capable of being objectively proven/substantiated.
- Remain up to date throughout the campaign.
- Specify any limitations on the availability of the product, offer, discount, or service.
- Comply with the laws, rules, and regulations applicable to each market where the campaign is run.
All campaigns at Rokt must not:
- Make fraudulent, false, or misleading offers.
- Rely on disclaimers to fix or negate a misleading impression contained in the principal messaging (clickbait); disclaimers may only clarify or qualify a claim.
- Make unverifiable claims, including claims regarding discounts, pricing, or competitors.
- Contain any misrepresentations or suggest that any entity has any approval, partnership, or sponsorship of another entity that it does not actually have.
- Contain offensive, inappropriate, sensitive, or illegal content.
- Contain any information that is contrary to any relevant industry code applicable in a particular market.
- Concern any topic that would require the Brand to hold a particular license, registration, or certification that the Brand does not hold (for example, when advertising certain types of financial, real estate, medical, pharmaceutical, or insurance related services in specific markets).
Partner & Brand Restrictions
Rokt provides flexible technology that delivers relevant and safe experiences to customers whilst delivering meaningful outcomes to our clients, both Partners and Brands. In order to protect the interest of all parties, Rokt categorizes each Brand and campaign (content), as well as the Partner’s business and placement (source). This allows Brands to control where their ad appears, whilst empowering Partners to allow/block offers from particular categories and Brands.
Additional restrictions are applied to offers and sources associated with medium to high risk:
- Prohibited - illegal or where there is a reasonable risk it could be illegal content that we probit on the network.
- Sensitive - high risk categories that requires explicit client consent.
Rokt maintains sole discretion to reject, remove, or exclude content for any reason. Our policies and categorization are subject to change at any time, without notice. Content that is already live can later become prohibited.
Prohibited Categories
Rokt prohibits offers and sources under the following categories. We do this as required by law and where there is a reasonable risk content could be illegal. We consider both the Brand’s and Partner’s primary business as well as the offer and placement context. For example, a department store that sells firearms amongst a wide range of acceptable products would be permitted to run a Rokt Ads campaign, as long as they are not promoting firearms.
- Illegal practices such as the promotion of illegal drugs, unregulated lending, and unregulated gaming/gambling. This includes:
- Dishonest practices, such as the promotion of counterfeit goods, academic cheating, file sharing, spyware and deceptive content.
- Discriminatory content, such as content that discriminates or promotes discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, religious beliefs, age, disability, employment, language, sex, gender identity, or sexual orientation.
- Unregulated financial products, such as cryptocurrency / NFTs or equivalent assets that have not been approved by the SEC or similar regulatory bodies.
- Reasonable risk content could be be illegal where the product or act of advertising is illegal in a range of jurisdictions (e.g. certain states) and the risk of incorrectly defining the relevant jurisdiction is high (e.g. conflicting regulations in one state vs another) we will prohibit this content on the Rokt network. This includes:
- Tobacco and nicotine products, such as cigarettes, cigars, e-cigarettes, and vapes.
- Firearms and explosives.
Sensitive Categories
Rokt acknowledges that content and association to some verticals may cause unintended harm, offense or conflict and as such maintains a list of Sensitive categories. As a safeguard for the partner, Sensitive categories are blocked by default so that Brands from these verticals will not appear on their site without the Partner actively allowing.
Sensitive categories currently include, but are not limited to:
- Online gaming, casinos, sports betting, fantasy sports and lottery.
- Cannabis and similar drugs which may have legal applications.
- Medical and cosmetic services, medical devices, pharmaceuticals, sexual wellness.
- Adult content, such as pornography, dating and escort services and sexually suggestive content.
- Government, military, political and charity organizations.
- Other dangerous products and services.
Similarly, Brands can have sensitivities around the context in which their offer can be presented. As such Brands can select whether or not to target their offer in sources that fall under the above sensitive categories. Furthermore, sources linked with prohibited categories that are legal to sell, but illegal to advertise (e.g., tobacco, firearm) are also considered Sensitive. That is, Ads can appear to a customer purchasing tobacco, however the Brand has the option whether or not to target. Where controls do not exist Rokt prevents ads appearing in sources deemed prohibited. As these Sensitive sources become significant we will build functionality to allow Brands to actively opt into targeting these transactions.
Campaign types
Rokt supports various campaign types to meet the use cases of our Clients, both Advertisers and Ecommerce Partners. The following table outlines the eligible campaign types.
| Campaign Type | Description | Rokt Ads (3rd party) | Rokt Ecommerce ( 1st Party & Strategic Partnerships) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Traffic | Direct the customer to a website landing page. | ✔ | ✔ |
| App Install | Send the customer to the app store to download an app | ✔ (mobile only) | ✔ |
| Promotion | Send promotional offer (usually a coupon code) to the customer via email | ✔ | ✔ |
| Credit Card (3rd Party) Application | Launch a credit card application form for the customer to complete | ✔ | ✔ |
| Email Lead | Subscribe the customer to a Brand CRM/ email list | ✗ | ✔ |
| Traffic & Email Lead | Subscribe the customer to an email list and redirect them to a landing page | ✗ | ✔ |
| Phone Lead | Seek consent to call the customer (phone lead generation) | ✗ | ✔ |
| Customer Feedback | Allow the customer to provide feedback through simple survey questions | ✗ | ✔ |
| Add to Cart | Directly sell the customer an additional product or service in the current transaction. | ✗ | ✔ |
For more detailed campaign policies for Advertisers, see here.
For more detailed campaign policies for Ecommerce Partners, see here.