Terms of Service
These are our standard terms of service. Where a signed agreement with us sets different terms, the agreement applies.
Projects and payment
- A 50% deposit is required for any project over $2,000, with the remainder due on final approval of the design work.
- Any project under $2,000 is paid in full, in advance.
- Once the work has been booked or started, the deposit is not refunded if you cancel the project for any reason.
- If we are unable to complete the project before the design drafts are started, we refund any work not completed at that point.
- No final design files are sent until the invoice is paid in full.
- If we don't hear back from you within five (5) business days of our last message, we may send the final invoice for the remaining balance. Work resumes once that balance is paid, scheduled around our availability.
Ownership and portfolio
- You receive exclusive rights to all final design work you approve and pay for. We keep the rights to any drafts or ideas not used in the final project.
- We may show any of our work in our portfolio, unless we agree otherwise before the project starts.
Files and communication
- Final design files are delivered to a shared Google Drive folder once the work is complete and paid for. You'll get an invitation to download them for you or your web developer.
- Project communication happens by email or in a shared Slack channel, so every piece of feedback and every deadline is on record.
Monthly services and cancellation
- Monthly services, such as website hosting and advertising management, are billed monthly by card until you cancel.
- You can cancel any monthly service at any time by email. Service continues to the end of the month you have paid for, and you will not be billed again. A month that has already started is not refunded.
- If you cancel website hosting, we give you a complete copy of your site files.
Digital Star Studio
Digital Star Studio is the private dashboard we set up for clients on their own website. We turn on the features we agree on with you. The Studio is a monthly service, billed and cancelled like the ones above.
Only mobile numbers on file for your account can sign in, and we text a one-time code. Don’t share your codes. Sign out of any device you share.
Fan emails go out only after a person with a phone on file for your account approves them with a one-time code we text to it. We treat that approval as yours.
Add only what you have the right to use: photos with the photographer’s permission, songs that are yours or licensed to you. Only give us fan lists you have the right to email. Don’t send spam through the Studio. Nothing you send may be misleading or break the law.
We may pause Studio access if these rules are broken. How we handle your information is in our Privacy Policy below.
Text messages (SMS terms)
The program. Digital Star Marketing LLC sends and receives text messages from its business number, (910) 679-9400. The same number carries Gnarlywhal, Digital Star Marketing’s text-based marketing assistant for local business owners.
Who gets texts, and what they are. We text only people who said yes: customers and prospects who text us first, customers who ask us on a phone call or in a meeting to text them, and business owners who text HEY to (910) 679-9400 to use Gnarlywhal. Texts to customers are replies to their questions, quote follow-ups, appointment and meeting reminders, and project and job updates. Texts to Gnarlywhal users are replies to their questions, alerts when a lead or missed call comes in for their business, requests to approve changes they asked for, and a weekly results summary.
How often. Message frequency varies with your project or account.
Cost. Message and data rates may apply.
Stopping and help. Reply STOP at any time to stop receiving texts; we send one message confirming you are unsubscribed and nothing after it. Reply START to sign up again. Reply HELP for help, or email alex@digitalstarmarketing.com or call (910) 679-9400.
Your consent. Agreeing to texts is not a condition of buying anything from us. Carriers are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages. How we handle your mobile number is in the Text messaging section of our Privacy Policy.
Billing questions and disputes
If a charge looks wrong, email us at alex@digitalstarmarketing.com before contacting your bank. We reply within two business days and refund any billing error in full. If a charge is disputed with your bank, we share our records with the bank, and we may pause the related service until the dispute is resolved.
Contact us
Digital Star Marketing LLC
Wilmington, North Carolina
alex@digitalstarmarketing.com
(910) 679-9400
Privacy Policy
Last updated November 6, 2026. This policy covers digitalstarmarketing.com, the pages we run at try.digitalstarmarketing.com, and Digital Star Studio.
The Information We Collect
What you give us. When you fill in a form we ask for your name, email address, company and monthly marketing budget, and you may add a phone number and a message. If you text us, we receive your mobile number and your messages.
What is collected automatically. Like most websites, ours records the pages you view, the page or ad that brought you here, your browser and device type, your approximate location from your IP address, and how you move through a page (clicks, scrolling and taps).
How We Use The Information
- To reply to you and send what you asked for
- To send periodic emails, which you can unsubscribe from at any time
- To improve our website and our customer service
- To measure our marketing and show our ads to people who have visited our site
Cookies and the tools we use
“Cookies” are small files a site stores in your browser so it can recognize the browser on a later visit. When you first arrive we ask whether you accept cookies. These are the services that set cookies or receive data from this site:
- HubSpot: our customer database and forms. It stores what you submit and links it to your visits to our site.
- Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager: visitor statistics, such as which pages are read and where visitors come from.
- Microsoft Clarity: shows us how visitors use our pages through recordings of clicks, scrolling and movement, and heatmaps, so we can fix what is confusing. Text you type into our forms is masked in those recordings. Microsoft’s use of this data is described in the Microsoft Privacy Statement.
- Google Ads, Meta (Facebook and Instagram) and LinkedIn: advertising. Their cookies let us measure our ads and show ads to people who have visited our site.
Remarketing
Cookies are also used to display advertisements, based upon the user’s previous visits to digitalstarmarketing.com, across the internet. You can opt out of personalized ads from Google at Google Ads Settings, from Meta in your Facebook ad preferences, and from LinkedIn in your LinkedIn ad settings.
How We Protect Your Information
We implement security measures to maintain the safety of the personal information you enter, submit, or access. This information is stored in password protected systems, and this site is served only over an encrypted (https) connection.
Do we disclose any information to outside parties?
We do not sell your personal information for money, and we do not trade or rent it. The services listed above process information for us. The advertising services also receive information about visits to this site through their cookies so that our ads can be measured and shown to past visitors.
How long we keep it
We keep what you send us for as long as we are in contact or doing business with you, and for as long as the law requires us to keep business records. You can ask us to delete it at any time.
Your choices and rights
Wherever you live, you can ask us what personal information we hold about you, ask us to correct or delete it, and unsubscribe from our emails. Email data@digitalstarmarketing.com. We reply within 45 days and never treat you differently for asking.
California residents
California law (the California Consumer Privacy Act, as amended) gives California residents the right to know what personal information a business collects, uses and discloses about them, to have it deleted or corrected, to opt out of its sale or of its sharing for cross-context behavioral advertising, and not to be discriminated against for using these rights.
- The categories we collect are identifiers (name, email address, phone number, IP address), commercial information (the company and budget you tell us about) and internet activity (your visits to this site).
- We do not sell personal information for money. California law may treat the advertising cookies described above as “sharing”. To opt out, use the ad settings links under Remarketing above, or email us and we will help.
- We do not knowingly collect, sell or share the personal information of anyone under 16.
- To make a request, email data@digitalstarmarketing.com. We will confirm the request using the email address we have for you. An agent you authorize in writing may make it for you.
Children
This site is for businesses. It is not directed to children, and we do not knowingly collect information from them.
Online Privacy Policy Only
This online privacy policy applies only to information collected through our website and not to information collected offline.
Changes to our Privacy Policy
If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes on this page and update the date at the top.
Text messaging
Digital Star Marketing LLC sends and receives text messages from (910) 679-9400 with people who said yes: customers and prospects who text us first or ask us to text them, and business owners who use Gnarlywhal, our text-based marketing assistant. When you text us we receive your mobile number and your messages, and we use them only to answer you and to send the texts described in our Text messages terms. Message frequency varies. Message and data rates may apply. Reply STOP at any time to stop receiving messages, or HELP for help.
We do not sell or share your SMS opt-in data or personal information with third parties for marketing purposes. No mobile information will be shared with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes. All the above categories exclude text messaging originator opt-in data and consent; this information will not be shared with any third parties.
Digital Star Studio and Google
Digital Star Studio can connect to a business owner’s Google account, only when the owner says yes on Google’s own screen. Each connection reads only what its feature needs:
- Google Drive. Pressing “Import from Google Drive” opens Google’s own picker. Of everything in your Drive, we can reach only the files you pick. We read each picked file’s contents, name, type and size to copy it into your private Studio files. That sign-in is used once, for that copy, and not stored.
- Google Calendar. We read when you are busy so your booking page never offers a time you already have taken, and we add each meeting a customer books to your calendar.
- Google Business Profile. We read your Google reviews so they show in your Studio, and post your reply to a review only after you confirm it. A review’s words are deleted from the Studio within 30 days of Google no longer showing them.
- Google Meet. After a meeting booked through the Studio ends, we read that meeting’s transcript, if one was made, so the Studio can write draft notes and a draft follow-up email for you to review. Nothing is sent without you.
Where it is kept. Everything stays in your business’s private Studio, kept with our hosting provider, Cloudflare. Google’s sign-in tokens are stored encrypted. To write meeting notes, the transcript is sent to our AI provider, Anthropic, which does not use it to train its models.
What we never do. Information from your Google account is never sold, never used for advertising, never used to train AI models, and never shared with anyone except the services above that run these features for you. People at Digital Star read it only with your permission, to fix a problem you ask us about, or where the law requires it.
Removing it. Disconnecting in the Studio’s settings ends the connection and asks Google to forget our access. You can also remove it at myaccount.google.com/connections. Email data@digitalstarmarketing.com and we delete what we copied from your Google account.
Digital Star Studio’s use and transfer to any other app of information received from Google APIs will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.
Digital Star Studio and TikTok
Digital Star Studio can connect to a business owner’s own TikTok account, only when the owner says yes on TikTok’s own screen. It uses that connection to:
- Show which account is connected. We keep the account’s TikTok ID, display name and profile picture.
- Count your followers. When you connect, and once a day after, we read the account’s follower count and show it in your Studio.
- Post your videos. Before each post we ask TikTok for the account’s nickname and posting settings. A video goes to TikTok only after you press Publish, with the caption, privacy setting, comment, Duet and Stitch settings and content disclosure you chose. TikTok fetches the video from a private link that stops working after an hour.
Where it is kept. Everything stays in your business’s private Studio, kept with our hosting provider, Cloudflare. TikTok’s sign-in tokens are stored encrypted.
What we never do. Information from your TikTok account is never sold, never used for advertising and never used to train AI models. People at Digital Star read it only with your permission, to fix a problem you ask us about, or where the law requires it.
Removing it. Disconnecting TikTok in the Studio deletes our stored access to the account. You can also remove Digital Star’s access in the TikTok app’s settings. Email data@digitalstarmarketing.com and we delete what we kept from your TikTok account. Videos you posted stay on TikTok until you delete them there.
Digital Star Studio and Facebook and Instagram
Digital Star Studio can connect to a business owner’s Facebook Pages and the Instagram professional accounts linked to them, only when the owner says yes on Facebook’s own screen. It uses that connection to:
- Show which Pages you can connect. We read the list of Facebook Pages you manage, yourself or through your business portfolio, and the Instagram account linked to each. For the Page or account you choose, we keep its ID, name and access. We also keep your Facebook ID for this app, so we can act on a request to delete your data.
- Post for you. A post goes to your Page or Instagram account only when you press Publish or at the time you scheduled, with the words and picture you chose.
- Count your audience. When you connect, and once a day after, we read the follower count of each connected Page and account. For posts you published through the Studio, we read the number of reactions or likes, comments and shares, and how many times the post was seen. We read numbers only, not who reacted or commented.
Where it is kept. Everything stays in your business’s private Studio, kept with our hosting provider, Cloudflare. Facebook’s access tokens are stored encrypted.
What we never do. Information from your Facebook Pages and Instagram accounts is never sold, never used for advertising and never used to train AI models. People at Digital Star read it only with your permission, to fix a problem you ask us about, or where the law requires it.
Removing it. Disconnecting a Page or account in the Studio deletes our stored access to it. You can also remove Digital Star Studio in Facebook’s Settings, under Business Integrations: Facebook then tells us, and we delete the access we held for you (how data deletion works). Email data@digitalstarmarketing.com and we delete what we kept from your Facebook and Instagram accounts. Posts you published stay on your Page or account until you delete them there.
Contacting Us
If there are any questions regarding this privacy policy you may contact us using the information below:
Website:
digitalstarmarketing.com
Address:
5904 Hollyholm Trce
Wilmington, NC 28409
Email:
data@digitalstarmarketing.com
