The official definition of a CNAME is Canonical Name. A CNAME is a record that is used in the Domain Name System (DNS) to create an alias from one domain name to another domain name.

In the email industry, CNAME records can be used to customize standard domains that are used to track email links, form submissions, and more. This practice can also be referred to as "custom tracking domains", "branded URLs", or "custom subdomains".

When CNAMEs are configured, any reference to a standard tracking domain will be masked. This means when links in an email are clicked, or a hosted landing page is viewed, or a hosted form is viewed, the customer will see their configured subdomains instead of ours.

Benefits

CNAMEs help preserve your sender reputation, increase deliverability, and can even improve email click-through rates. 

If you're not using CNAMEs, you’re using a shared tracking domain. Typically this is not a major concern as most ESPs keep shared tracking domains clean and reputable, but it only takes one spam campaign using a standard tracking domain to cause temporary deliverability issues.

Further, using a CNAME that includes your brand name will allow your subscribers to feel confident about clicking links in your emails. Because of this, our customers typically see an uplift in their email click activity.

How-To

This functionality is considered self service and requires a few setup steps in the Settings dashboard as well as involvement of the customer’s IT team. The general steps include:

1. Enter up to four desired subdomains to be used for email link tracking, asset files (email templates & media library files), landing pages, and forms.
2. Share the generated instructions with your IT team to complete necessary steps on your side.
3. Then, return to Settings in Delivra to authenticate the subdomains configured with a click of a button.

Please visit this help article for the full setup process.

Notes

1. CNAME functionality is available at the Professional license or above.
2. Only site level administrators will have access to setup CNAMEs in Settings.
3. Delivra customers can configure up to 4 custom tracking domains per account.