A custom tracking domain for the links in your emails
Most email and link tools rewrite your links onto a shared tracking domain. Moving them onto a subdomain of your own, such as go.yourbrand.com, keeps your links tied to your reputation instead of everyone else’s.
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What a tracking domain is
To count clicks, a sending or link tool replaces each link in your email with one that points at its own server. The server records the click and redirects to the real page. The domain in that rewritten link is the tracking domain.
By default it belongs to the tool and is shared by every customer. A custom tracking domain is a subdomain you own that points at the same service, so the rewritten link shows your brand.
Why it matters
- Reputation: spam filters judge the domains in your links. A shared domain carries the history of every sender on it, good and bad. Your own subdomain carries only yours.
- Alignment: links on a subdomain of your sending domain match the From address, which looks consistent to filters and to people.
- Trust: readers who hover over a link see go.yourbrand.com, not a domain they have never heard of.
- Portability: if you change tools, the links in old emails can keep working by pointing the subdomain at the new service.
Choosing the subdomain
Use a short, neutral subdomain of the domain you send from, such as go., links. or click. on yourbrand.com. Keep it only for tracking links, so its reputation reflects your campaigns and nothing else.
How to set it up
- Pick the subdomain. For example go.yourbrand.com, on the domain you send email from.
- Add it in your tool. The tool shows the DNS record to create, usually a CNAME.
- Create the CNAME record. At your DNS host, point the subdomain at the target the tool gave you.
- Wait for the check. Once DNS resolves, the tool verifies the domain.
- Make sure HTTPS works. Links must load over HTTPS without a certificate warning; good tools issue the certificate for you.
- Use it in your emails. New links are rewritten onto your domain. Send a test and hover over a link to check.
Mistakes to avoid
- Using the root domain or the website’s www host: keep tracking on its own subdomain.
- Leaving HTTPS for later: a link that shows a certificate warning loses the click and looks unsafe.
- Sharing the subdomain between tools: one subdomain, one service, so every click lands in one place.
- Deleting the record when you switch tools: old emails still contain those links.
Tracking domains in LumyFlow
In LumyFlow you add a subdomain under Domains and point it at LumyFlow with the one CNAME record shown. Once DNS checks out, the domain is live and LumyFlow issues the HTTPS certificate for you.
Every campaign link then runs on that domain. Each click is checked by the campaign’s filters and protections, recorded in the Traffic log, and sent to destination A or B, and conversions are tied back to it.