Link branding allows you to customize URLs to match your brand instead of using generic link shorteners. This process usually involves using your domain name for the links.
Link branding aims to:
- Make your links look professional and consistent with your brand to enhance brand recognition
- Make your links look trustworthy to increase trust for users to click on them
- Boost click-through rates and overall marketing performance to improve marketing effectiveness
This article explains how the link branding setup process works and the following steps to complete the setup process:
1. DNS record setup
2. SSL setup for your link branding domain
3. Verification
To complete the link branding setup, you need to create a ticket to Insider's deliverability team.
1. DNS record setup
Insider deliverability team will share two CNAME records with you to add under your domain.
Add the respective CNAME records in your domain hosting provider settings and inform the deliverability team.
| Type | Host | Value |
|---|---|---|
| CNAME | url{rand-id-1}.{your-domain}.com | sendgrid.net |
| CNAME | {rand-id-2}.{your-domain}.com | sendgrid.net |
Or
| Type | Host | Value |
|---|---|---|
| CNAME | {subdomain}.{your-domain}.com | sendgrid.net |
| CNAME | {rand-id-2}.{your-domain}.com | sendgrid.net |
Below you can see DNS record setup tutorials for some providers:
2. SSL setup for your link branding domain
To setup SSL for your link branding domain, you can proceed to 2.1 OR 2.2. If you are using one of the providers listed in 2.1 (e.g. AWS Route53, GoDaddy, Azure, etc.), proceed to follow section 2.1. If you're using CDN, proceed to follow section 2.2.
2.1. Follow these steps if you are using one of the providers listed below (e.g. AWS Route53, GoDaddy, etc.)
You must set up SSL for your link branding domain (e.g. url123.yourdomain.com) as you would for the other domains.
SSL setup will vary depending on the service provider and the available certificate. You need a certificate that will be valid for the CNAME record shared with you. If you already have a wildcard (*.yourdomain.com) SSL that covers any subdomains, you can easily set it up. However, if you choose to use a double subdomain (url123.sub.yourdomain.com) as your link branding and you do not have a double wildcard certificate (*.*.yourdomain.com) or your SSL certificate is exclusive to your main domain (yourdomain.com), you will need to purchase a certificate to complete the setup.
Below you can see SSL setup tutorials for some providers:
2.2. Follow these steps if you are using CDN.
Forward all the requests coming to url123.yourdomain.com to sendgrid.net. You can forward the request using your own CDN or Proxy.
Below you can see the CDN/Proxies documents for some providers:
At this point, your DNS records should look like as in the following example table:
| Type | Host | Value |
|---|---|---|
| CNAME | url123.yourdomain.com | URL to your CDN or Proxy or API Gateway |
| CNAME | 123456.yourdomain.com | sendgrid.net |
3. Verification
Verification consists of two steps: verification on your end and verification on Insider. Once the previous steps are completed, you can verify if everything has been set up correctly on your end. To verify on your end, you will need to run the following command:
dig ns url{rand-id}.{yourdomain}.com
// or
dig ns {subdomain}.{yourdomain}.com(1).png)
Verify Certificate
To verify the certificate, run the following command:
openssl s_client -showcerts -connect url{rand-id}.{yourdomain}.com:443
// or
openssl s_client -showcerts -connect {subdomain}.{yourdomain}.com:443You will receive a public certificate as a response with the following response:(1).png)
Once you verify everything on your end, you can contact Insider One team to verify your setup. Once the setup is verified on Insider's end, your next email will have your custom domain in the links instead of sendgrid.net.