How to Ask for a Re-Review, With an Email You Can Copy and Paste
You want to earn more from affiliate links, so you sign your site up with Sovrn Commerce.
You submit the URL. You set up the links. You even get some clicks going through.
Okay, all that's left is the review.
Then this shows up on your screen.
"Denied."
And the reason is only a broad category, something like "your site may not meet requirements for quality, security, or transparency." Where, exactly? What am I supposed to fix? I didn't sign up for a treasure hunt.
But before you resubmit the same URL over and over or open a brand-new account, know that the path forward is pretty simple.
Go over your site again, then ask Sovrn Support for a manual re-evaluation.
This post walks through the steps and gives you an email you can copy and paste.
0. The 30-second version
Here's all you need to do.
- Check which site got Denied.
- Look at your About page, contact page, privacy policy, ad/affiliate disclosure, terms of use, editorial policy, HTTPS, and so on.
- Read Sovrn's current Code of Conduct too. The requirement for "four months of content and traffic or user engagement" is easy to miss. [1]
- Set up one of the Commerce integration methods so that real users' clicks can happen. Sovrn describes the flow as sign up → integrate → clicks happen → review. [2]
- If you're stuck at Denied, ask Support for a re-evaluation. Sovrn's Site Settings help page also points you to Support for Denied sites. [3]
- In the email, say "what I fixed" and ask them to tell you specifically "which requirement is still missing, if any."
In short, don't mash the resubmit button. Send a re-review request that lists what you changed.
1. What is "Denied" actually looking at?
Before approving a site, Sovrn Commerce runs a Network Quality review.
The official Getting Started guide says you integrate Commerce on each site, and once clicks happen, the site goes into the review queue. [2]
If you read the Code of Conduct, the list of things that can cause trouble in a review is quite broad.
- Misleading content
- Non-original content, such as copied articles
- Dangerous or unsupported health information
- Illegal, adult, or otherwise inappropriate content
- Unnatural or automated clicks
- Traffic that isn't transparent about where it comes from
- Links that trick readers
- Less than four months of content and traffic or user engagement
- Violations of a merchant's terms
So they're not just checking whether your articles are hard to read.
They look at content, how openly the site is run, the quality of your traffic, and how you handle links, all together.
It's true that a vague "quality / security / transparency" is too broad to act on. That's exactly why it's worth asking in your re-review email, "which specific requirement am I missing?"
2. What to fix before you ask again
First, make sure a visitor can at least see who runs the site and how.
Here's a checklist of candidates.
- About page (a page about the site)
- Contact page
- Privacy policy
- Terms of use
- Disclosure that you use ads and affiliate links
- Editorial policy
- Sources and corrections policy
- HTTPS
- No strange automatic redirects
- Ads that don't crush the main text
- Enough original writing
- No bots or automated clicks being passed along as real clicks
And the one people forget is the age of the site and real usage.
On October 2, 2026, I checked the Sovrn Commerce Publisher Code of Conduct. Under the requirements for Channel Content, it clearly says a channel needs "four months of content and traffic or user engagement." [1]
You can't always clear this just by adding one more page.
Even if you built the site yesterday and loaded 100 articles today, the four-month time requirement itself may count against you in review.
The final boss might not be your CSS. It might be the calendar.
3. Clicks are what trigger a review, not a button-mashing game
In Sovrn's Getting Started guide, integrating Commerce and getting clicks to happen is part of the review flow. [2]
But that doesn't mean "so I should just click 100 times myself."
The Code of Conduct prohibits non-bona fide traffic, such as bots, scripts, hidden frames, and clicks the user didn't intend to make. [1]
Lots of clicks from the same person or the same IP address can also be treated as illegitimate transactions.
So what you need is this:
Not inflated click numbers, but Commerce installed correctly and natural usage reaching it.
Faking clicks to get through review and adding to what gets reviewed is like putting out a campfire by starting a fire with the extinguisher.
4. Step by step: asking for a re-evaluation
If you get Denied, it helps to sort things out in this order.
Step 1: Check which site was Denied
In Settings on the Sovrn Platform, find the site and check its Approval Status.
Step 2: Fix the site
From the checklist above, fix whatever is actually missing.
The point is not to "make pages just so you can mention them in the email." It's to make the site something a reader can look at and understand who's behind it and how it's run.
Step 3: Contact Support
Sovrn's official Knowledge Base tells you how to contact Support about Commerce, and it spells out that you should reach out to Support about Denied sites too. [2][3]
Include the following in your email.
- The domain in question
- That it's Denied in Commerce
- The items you've already fixed
- That you're asking for a manual re-evaluation
- If something is still missing, that you'd like to know the specific requirement, as far as they can share it
That turns a vague "please review me again" into a re-review request with your changes attached.
5. Copy-and-paste email template (in English)
You can use this as is for a starting point.
Subject: Request for Re-evaluation of [your-domain.example] for Sovrn Commerce
Hello Sovrn Support,
I would like to request a manual re-evaluation of my website, https://[your-domain.example]/, for Sovrn Commerce.
The site is currently shown as “Denied” with a message indicating that it may not meet merchant requirements for quality, security, or transparency.
Since the initial review, I have reviewed and improved the site’s transparency and compliance information. The site currently includes:
- About / operator information
- Editorial policy and sourcing/correction guidelines
- Privacy policy
- Advertising and affiliate disclosure
- Terms of use
- Public contact page
- HTTPS across the site
- Clear affiliate disclosures on relevant content
The site is actively maintained and publishes original content for its readers.
Could you please manually re-review https://[your-domain.example]/ for Sovrn Commerce?
If the site is still ineligible, I would appreciate it if you could tell me which specific requirement is not currently met, where possible, so I can address it directly.
Thank you for your help.
Best regards
Important: keep only the items you've actually done.
Writing "we have a privacy policy" when you don't is the kind of masterpiece blunder where an email meant to raise your transparency lowers it.
And if you haven't hit the four-month requirement yet, don't write that you have.
6. What not to do
Don't try to get around it with a different account for the same site
Sovrn keeps a site's review history by design, and its Site Settings explanation says users can't delete a site themselves. [3]
The Code of Conduct also clearly treats it as a problem when a publisher who was removed from the Sovrn Commerce network tries to rejoin with another account. [1]
"Denied" and "removed from the network" aren't the same state, but the safe choice is to stay away from any plan that uses a second account to dodge the review.
Automated clicks and mass self-clicking
That isn't a review strategy. It's a policy-violation risk. [1]
Writing things in the email that you haven't fixed
A re-review email isn't a sales pitch.
Telling them accurately where things stand now makes it more likely you'll get specific feedback afterward.
7. If the re-review still fails
If you get Denied again, what you want next isn't a pass or fail but the name of the missing condition.
In their reply, try to narrow it down as much as you can:
- Is it the four-month requirement?
- Is it content quality?
- Is it traffic quality?
- Is it how transparent the site's operation is?
- Is it a merchant requirement?
- Is it the technical state of the integration?
If it's a time requirement, no amount of fixing code overnight will speed up the clock fourfold.
If it's traffic quality, adding 15 more About pages isn't the real fix.
Once you have the cause category, you can tell whether your next move is to "fix something" or to "wait."
8. Wrap-up: A rejection is less a "fail" and more a "bug report with missing info"
Seeing the Denied screen can look like "okay, game over" for a moment.
But what actually hurts in practice isn't failing. It's not knowing which requirement you failed on.
So for a re-review, make this one continuous flow:
Tidy up the site → list what you actually fixed → ask Support for a manual re-evaluation → if it still fails, ask which condition is missing.
The hardest part of an affiliate review isn't writing the English email.
It's figuring out which of "quality, security, or transparency" it actually is.
Once you know that, the opponent you're fighting finally shows up on the screen.
Sources
https://www.sovrn.com/service-policies/commerce-publisher-code-of-conduct/
https://knowledge.sovrn.com/kb/getting-started-with-sovrn-commerce
https://knowledge.sovrn.com/kb/site-settings-in-commerce
References (3)
- Sovrn, Commerce Publisher Code of Conduct
- Sovrn Knowledge Base, Getting Started with Sovrn Commerce
- Sovrn Knowledge Base, Site Settings in Commerce
