Track Opens and Clicks from Your Custom Domain

Today, we’re proud to showcase a new capability that gives you more control over your emails, and can potentially improve your deliverability.

Introducing the ability to use your own custom domain when tracking email opens and clicks.

…Yeah.

I didn’t get what that phrase meant the first time I heard it either.

It may sound like complex and jargon-y, but it’s actually pretty simple. Let’s walk through what custom domain tracking means, how it can benefit you, and how you can set it up.

How open and click tracking works currently

BuzzStream uses one of our BuzzStream domains to track your opens and clicks. That means when you turn on open tracking, we add an invisible pixel linking to our domain so we know when it’s been opened, and when you turn on click tracking, we replace your link with a link to our domain, which then redirects the recipient to your link.

The good news is that using our domain makes it easy to turn tracking on. The bad news is that your emails include links to a domain that you don’t control, and that can affect your deliverability and sender score.

Why tracking through your own custom domain is better

A custom tracking domain is a way to track your opens and clicks using your own domain.

That means when you send emails from BuzzStream and want to track email activity, you’ll use your own domain instead of BuzzStream’s.

There are a number of benefits to utilizing your own domain to track your email opens and clicks, the two big ones being:

1. More control over your email deliverability and sender reputation

Many factors contribute to building a good send reputation over time, and your reputation affects your deliverability. (With the less reputable email service providers think you are, the more likely it is that your emails will end up in spam.)

Your custom domain tracking means you’re not dependent on BuzzStream’s shared domains to track your email activity, meaning your sender reputation is completely your own and uninfluenced by other BuzzStream users.

2. More likely to reach hard-to-impress recipients 

Some people are super turned off by tracking links, as in a “throw your email in the trash the second they hover over a link and see a domain different from your email address” kind of response.

You can avoid that situation by using your own domain to track email activity. When you set up a custom tracking domain, recipients will see a domain name that matches your email when they hover over the links in your message, which will make those skeptical recipients more disposed to hearing you out, and possibly even improving your click through rate.

How do I set up a custom tracking domain?

To set up a custom tracking domain in BuzzStream, go to your Settings.

Then click Tracking Options from the right hand menu.

From here, click Add Domain, and follow the instructions in the window.

Once you’ve created your sub-domain, add the tracking domain to the field at the top of the window, then hit Validate. BuzzStream will list the tracking domain below, as well as whether it’s valid or not, and which email addresses are associated with that domain.

Want to learn more about email deliverability?

If you’re interested in learning more about email deliverability and sender reputation in general, check out these resources:

• SendGrid’s Email Deliverability Guide
• MailChimp’s How to Avoid Spam Filters
• Our best practices around sending emails in bulk

In addition to reading up on deliverability best practices, you can also use services like Litmus to keep track of your spam score across different services.

As always, let us know what you think about this new feature! Feel free to leave us a comment below, reach out to us on Twitter @BuzzStream, or drop us an email at support@buzzstream.com.