How to Set Up a Custom Tracking Domain in GoDaddy

An easy way to get flagged as a spammer is using your email service provider (ESP) as-is.

ESPs track open and click rates through a shared tracking domain.

Since spammers also use it, the domain’s reputation takes a hit.

If you send emails with it, internet service providers might label you as a spammer.

Yikes!

The fix? Set up a custom tracking domain just for you.

Here’s how to do it in GoDaddy. ⬇️

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Setting up a CTD on GoDaddy 📝

To start your email outreach with a clean sheet, you need to install a custom tracking domain.

Fortunately, it’s a straightforward process to do so on GoDaddy.

💡Important: you don’t want to use your main domain as the tracking domain. In any email marketing, recipients could mark your emails as spam and stain your sender reputation. That’s why we’re setting up a subdomain as the tracking domain.

Step 1: Create a CNAME record on GoDaddy

1. ➡️ Log in to GoDaddy and go to your dashboard
2. ➡️ Click on My products
3. ➡️ Find your domain
4. ➡️ Click on the DNS button
5. ➡️ On the DNS Management page, click Add
6. ➡️ Choose CNAME as the record’s type
7. ➡️ In the Name field, choose the name of your subdomain. You decide how to name your tracking domain, but we like to keep it simple and name it tracking. Your final subdomain would now look like this: tracking.yourdomain.com.
8. ➡️ The Value field should hold your ESP’s tracking domain. You should be able to find this tracking domain in your ESP account. Ask your ESP if you can’t find it. Basically, what we’re doing here is redirecting your subdomain to your ESP's tracking domain so you don’t have to feature the suspicious URLs of your ESP’s tracking domain in your emails.
9. ➡️ Save your record

It can take a couple of days before your record becomes active.

Step 2: Add your Custom Tracking Domain to your email service provider

Now you’ve created your CTD, it’s time to start using it by adding it to your ESP.

This process will differ depending on your ESP, but the steps will be similar to the ones below. ⬇️

1. ➡️ Log in to your ESP
2. ➡️ Look for “Domain settings,” Service settings,” or a similar setting. Your ESP will help you out if you can’t find it.
3. ➡️ Next, look for an option to add your CTD. It could be called “Tracking domain” or similar.
4. ➡️ Now add your CTD here. For example tracking.yourdomain.com.
5. ➡️ Save!

Congrats on Setting Up Your Custom Tracking Domain! 🥳

You’re one step closer to your audience’s inbox.

This is an excellent moment to review the other steps that lead to superior open rates.

The first thing to do is to ensure your email authentication records are on point.

These DNS records should be present in the same place where you just added the CNAME records. The records are:

• ➡️ SPF
• ➡️ DKIM
• ➡️ DMARC
• ➡️ MX

Additionally, warming up your email is of the utmost importance for email outreach.

When you’re just starting to send emails, you have no sender reputation to speak of.

You have to slowly build up this reputation by gradually increasing your sending frequency and volume while also getting engagement for your emails.

Doing this manually is nearly impossible; that’s where an email warm-up service like lemwarm comes into play.

lemwarm can increase your open rates to 65% or more.