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Why a campaign goes under review
What it means when a send is held "under review", what triggers it, and how to clear and avoid it.
If one of your sends shows as "under review", our compliance system has flagged it for a closer look before it goes out. For most accounts this lasts only a few minutes, but it's understandably worrying to see a send paused, so here's what's happening and why.
When the system spots something it's unsure about in a send, it automatically escalates it to our compliance team for a quick check. It's there to protect the reputation of the whole sending network - which is what keeps everyone's mail reaching the inbox.
What raises the odds of a review
Accounts that consistently meet these baseline figures are far less likely to be held:
- Open rate of 15% or higher
- Hard bounce rate never above 5%
- Spam complaint rate no more than 0.1%
- Unsubscribe rate no more than 1%
Avoid image-only campaigns - aim for a healthy mix of text and images. Make sure your sending domain is authenticated and that you're hitting the baseline figures above. Both make a held review much less likely.
Troubleshooting
Stuck under review for hours - reviews can take longer outside business hours, but if it's been more than about 30 minutes during the day, get in touch. Scheduling sends during business hours tends to clear faster.
Flagged on every campaign - check your sending stats against the baselines above, authenticate your domain with SPF, DKIM and DMARC, improve your text-to-image ratio, and clean inactive or invalid addresses off your list.
A legitimate campaign was rejected - review the reason given, remove anything that reads as a spam trigger or a misleading subject line, check every link is legitimate, and reply to explain the campaign's genuine purpose.
Avoiding future flags - keep your sending volume steady (no sudden spikes), use double opt-in, include a clear unsubscribe link every time, and prune subscribers who haven't opened in six months or more.
If a review is taking too long or you'd like help hitting these rates, open a support ticket.