How to add a CNAME with Cloudflare?

Hey there!

Setting up your Custom Tracking Domain (CTD) is a real asset as it allows you to boost your deliverability since using your custom domain and not a "shared" one protects your domain reputation.

Well, just one excellent reason is enough for creating your CTD asap!

No worries, you just need to follow the steps below.

1. Create a sub-domain on the provider’s end

To create a sub-domain, you need to go to your domain provider and edit your domain's DNS (Domain Name Service) records.

And to do that, you may need administrator access... So, ask your dev team to help you out with it. 🤓

Once you get access to your domain provider -> go to the "DNS" section -> click on the domain you want to add a sub-domain to -> follow the steps below.

☝️ FYI, keep in mind that each domain provider has its interface, that's why you may not have the same "fields names" as below. But don't worry! We put the most common ones so you're not lost. 😉

Once you are on the "DNS" section of your domain, you'll have a button to create a new entry.

Click on it and a new window will appear with different options.
You'll need to complete the 3 fields with info for you ⬇️

1. For the "TYPE" field.

👉 Select "CNAME".

2. For the "NAME" or "HOST" field.

👉 Refer to the name lemlist generated, it can be "trail", "route" or "lemtrail"

3️. For the "HOSTNAME" or "VALUE" or "POINTS TO" field.

👉 Type "custom.lemlist.com." (leave the final dot if accepted, if not, remove it)

4️. Then come back inside the lemlist settings and add your custom tracking domain that should look like trail.yourdomain.com in your settings -> team (or user) -> custom tracking domain.

For Cloudflare: when setting up your CNAME record, set it to DNS proxy only by clicking on the little orange cloud at the end of your DNS line (the default is set to HTTP and DNS).

This is how it should look like in Cloudflare:

Once saved - this will be the outcome:

Once you've finished the setup, you can double-check if it's working.

If your “Name” is "trail", and your domain is" lovelemlist.com", then your custom tracking domain will look like this:

trail.lovelemlist.com

 Go to your browser, copy-paste your domain and see if it displays the message below. 🎉

If yes, everything is fine!

Otherwise, there's a problem in your configuration and your tracking domain will not work. That means that you need to check with your host and see why they're not propagating it.

Boom! The hard part is DONE! 👏 

2. Go back to lemwarm

Go to “Account settings” and choose the “Custom tracking domain” section to insert the outcome of your previous setup (in our case “trail.lovelemlist.com”):

Or, you are in the team (where you have multiple users under the same domain), you can insert it here and it will be applied to the whole team:

lemlist will check your DNS records and see if everything looks good.

If that's not working, no worries as it can take up to 72 hours before your DNS record gets distributed around the Internet. In that case, my advice is to set up an alarm 72h later to remind you to go back to lemlist and finish the set-up.

In the meantime, you can also check with host support if they see in their backend if everything is ok from their side since lemlist cannot check their backend. 

That’s it!