Refusing an ad
Sometimes an ad lands in your channel that you would rather not carry. It might be within the content level you chose and still be wrong for your audience — a competitor, a tone you dislike, a topic your subscribers will not thank you for.
You can refuse it. It comes down immediately, it never comes back, and it costs you absolutely nothing.
Deleting the bot's post yourself, or removing the bot's administrator rights while a placement is live, is treated as breaking the exchange's 24-hour promise. It costs reliability, earns a strike, and can pause your account and suspend your channels. Refusing through the dashboard does exactly what you want and carries no penalty at all. Always use Refuse.
When to use it
| You want to | Use |
|---|---|
| Remove one specific ad that is live in your channel now | Refuse (this page) |
| Stop that ad ever appearing in this channel again | Refuse (this page) |
| Approve every ad before it posts, from now on | Review ads — see Reviewing ads before they post |
| Stop hosting in this channel entirely | Leave — see Hosting ads |
| Change what content levels this channel accepts | Re-run Add a channel for the same channel — see Getting started |
How to refuse an ad
- On the exchange page, open My channels.
- Click Hosted ads on the channel's row. This button appears once the channel has carried at least one ad.
- A panel opens listing the ads this channel has hosted in the last 30 days. Each entry shows:
- a Live tag if a copy is up in your channel right now,
- a Refused tag if you have already refused it,
- the ad's content level and topic,
- a preview of the ad's content.
- Click Refuse next to the ad you want gone.
- Confirm the prompt: "Refuse this ad? It won't be placed in your channel again, and any live copy comes down now — penalty-free."
The exchange replies immediately — "Refused. It won't be placed in this channel again — the live copy is coming down now." — and the entry in the list flips to Refused, with its Refuse button removed.
What happens after you refuse
Three things happen at once, and all of them are permanent for that ad and that channel:
- Any live copy comes down. The bot removes it right away, without waiting for the rest of its 24 hours.
- Any scheduled copy is cancelled. If that ad was queued to appear in your channel later, it is dropped rather than posted.
- A permanent block is recorded. That ad will never be matched to that channel again — not in this cycle, not in any future one.
And three things that do not happen:
- No reliability penalty. Refusing is a host's right, and the exchange treats it as a normal outcome, not a broken promise.
- No strike, no cooldown, no suspension. Your standing is untouched.
- No exposure. The advertiser is never told which host refused their ad. They see only that a placement did not complete.
The one cost is neutral rather than punitive: a placement that did not run its full term earns no credits. You simply do not get paid for an ad you did not carry.
Scope — exactly how far a refusal reaches
| Scope | Refused? |
|---|---|
| That ad, in that channel | Blocked permanently |
| That ad, in your other enrolled channels | Not blocked — refuse it there too if you want it gone |
| That advertiser's other campaigns, in that channel | Not blocked — they can still be matched |
| The whole topic or content level | Not blocked — to change what you accept, change the channel's level |
Refusal is deliberately narrow. It removes one creative from one channel, so a single unwanted ad never costs you the rest of the pool.
If you find yourself refusing a lot
Frequent refusals usually mean the channel's settings do not match your instincts. Two better tools:
- Lower the level ceiling. If you keep refusing finance or gambling ads, the channel is enrolled at a level that accepts them. Re-run Add a channel for the same channel and pick a lower level — re-enrolling updates the ceiling and keeps the channel's other settings.
- Turn on review. Instead of refusing after the fact, approve each ad before it posts. See Reviewing ads before they post.
Rules and edge cases
- Refusing the same ad twice does nothing extra. The action is safe to repeat; a second refusal is simply a no-op.
- You can only refuse ads your channel was actually asked to host. If an ad has never had a placement in that channel, the exchange answers "That ad isn't one your channel has hosted."
- You can refuse an ad that has already finished. It stays refused, so the same creative is never offered to that channel again.
- The Hosted ads list covers the last 30 days. Older placements are not listed, but a block you already made stays in force permanently.
- Refusing is available on every plan. It is a host protection, never a paid feature.
- Leaving a channel does not pull live ads down. If you withdraw a channel, anything already live finishes its 24 hours. Refuse first if you need something gone now.
FAQ
Does refusing hurt my reliability score?
No. Not at all. This is the entire reason the Refuse button exists — so that there is always a penalty-free way to get an ad out of your channel.
Will the advertiser know it was me?
No. Both sides of the exchange are anonymous, and a refusal does not break that.
The ad is already down but I don't want it back. Should I still refuse it?
Yes. Refusing a completed ad blocks it from returning to that channel in a later cycle.
I refused an ad and my channel has gone quiet. Are they related?
No. A refusal blocks one creative and nothing else. A quiet channel is usually a matching question — see Hosting ads.
I removed the ad myself before I knew about Refuse. What now?
You will see a strike and a cooldown on the exchange page, with the exact end time. Paid plans forgive a number of genuine accidents per cycle, and the page tells you how many you have left. Read Rules and fair play, and use Refuse from now on.
Next: Running ads — with a channel hosting, the advertising side is open. This is how you build and submit your own ad.