You can protect your sender reputation and improve deliverability by setting up your own custom tracking domain for email opens and link clicks.
What is Custom Tracking Domain and what does it do?
A Custom Tracking Domain (CTD) is your own dedicated domain used to track email opens and link clicks. It acts as a proxy, isolating your sender reputation from others.
When you enable open or link tracking, Instantly inserts special tracking code into your emails, typically a URL like xyz.inreg1.com/[code]. This URL is shared among Instantly customers unless you set up a custom tracking domain.
With a custom domain, the inserted code uses your domain, ensuring unique tracking and protecting your sender reputation.
How to Set Up Custom Tracking Domain
Note: For Done-For-You or Pre-warmed domains/accounts, we automatically set up the CNAME record and enable the custom tracking domain - No action needed from you.
Setting up a CTD involves five steps(watch the walkthrough video HERE):
Step 1: Access Your Domain's DNS Panel
Go to your domain's DNS panel
Find the domain to create a custom tracking domain for.
Go to Manage/ Edit DNS records.
Step 2: Add New CNAME Record
Field | Value |
Record Type | CNAME |
Host/Name |
|
Value/Target |
|
TTL | Automatic or 3600 (default) |
Step 3: Save the CNAME Record
Click "Save" to save your changes
Wait 24-72 hours for DNS propagation (often faster)
Step 4: Enable Custom Tracking Domain in Instantly
Go to Email Accounts Dashboard
Click on the email account you want to configure
A pop-up window will appear
Navigate to the Settings section
Scroll down to find "Custom tracking domain" setting
Check the box to enable it
Enter your custom tracking domain:
inst.yourdomain.comReplace
yourdomain.comwith your actual domainSave the changes
Step 5: Verify Setup
Click "Check Status"
Instantly will verify your CNAME record
If everything is set up correctly, you will receive the following notification below the Check Status: CNAME Verified
If the CNAME record hasn't propagated or hasn't been added correctly, you'll see the 'Retrying' status at the bottom of the page.
How to Verify Your CNAME Record
If Instantly still shows "Retrying" or you want to confirm your CNAME is set up correctly:
Go to the test tool
Choose "CNAME Lookup" from the dropdown menu
Enter your custom tracking domain (e.g., inst.yourdomain.com).
Check results
If your CNAME record has been added correctly, the result should show "prox.itrackly.com" in the Canonical Name field.
If the result shows 'DNS Record not found', it means the CNAME record has not been added properly. Please check your CNAME records for any typos or contact your domain provider for assistance.
Record Type: CNAME
Host: inst
Value: prox.itrackly.com
If you're getting the notification "Your domain needs additional verification. Please add the following TXT records to your DNS settings". Please add the provided TXT value in your domain's DNS panel as suggested to complete the setup.
How to Organize Custom Tracking Domains
There are two ways to organize your custom tracking domains:
Single CTD for All Domains
Use a single custom tracking domain for multiple domains. This would make sense if your primary domain is old/warmed up. If you're running a lead agency, this is what we would recommend.
Separate CTD Per Domain
Different custom tracking domain for each sending domain. If you have two domains [email protected] and [email protected], you may use:
inst.first.com for all email addresses associated with first.com
inst.second.com for all email addresses associated with second.com.
This approach would make sense when all of your domains are new, or if you're experimenting with a new campaign that could potentially have a negative impact on your reputation. By creating separate groups, you can minimize the damage from a bad campaign.