Verify your email domain in Pendo

Note: This offering is currently in beta, available to select Pendo customers for testing. The information that follows isn't a commitment, promise, or legal obligation. The development, release, and timing of any features or functionality described here are subject to change at the discretion of Pendo, which can occur without notice. If you're interested in getting early access and providing feedback, contact your Pendo account representative.

Pendo is required to verify domain ownership to allow customers to send emails through the Pendo platform. To do this, we need you to provide some information so that we can set up the initial version of email. Contact Pendo support to begin the technical configuration to set up your email identity on our platform. Pendo will send you the CNAME records that you need to configure in your DNS server.

1. Log in to your domain’s DNS or web hosting provider.
2. Copy the CNAME records you received from Pendo.
   

   Important: You must copy the CNAME records exactly as they are and not make any changes to them.

3. Add the records you copied to your domain’s DNS settings.
   

   Note: Each provider has different procedures for updating DNS records. A small number of DNS providers don't allow you to include underscores (_) in record names. However, the underscore in the DKIM record name is required. If your DNS provider doesn't allow you to enter an underscore in the record name, contact the provider's customer support team for assistance. See DNS or Hosting provider.

After copying the records to your domain’s DNS settings, send a verification email to Pendo so that we know you’re ready to start sending emails.

Note: Changes to DNS settings can take up to 72 hours to take effect. The verification process is complete after Pendo detects all the required records in your domain's DNS settings.

DNS or Hosting provider table

This table provides a partial list of DNS or Hosting provider sites, with external links to resources that explain how to update DNS records. If your specific provider isn’t on this list, check directly with them on how to update DNS records.

Add custom tracking domain for email identities

A tracking domain for email identities is important for several reasons:

• Improved deliverability. A tracking domain helps establish trust with email service providers by aligning the links in your emails with your domain. This reduces the likelihood of your emails being flagged as spam and improves overall deliverability rates.
• Branding consistency. Using your own tracking domain ensures that any links in your emails reflect your brand rather than a third-party domain. This builds credibility and provides a consistent brand experience for recipients.
• Avoiding spam filters. Many spam filters scrutinize links in emails to detect phishing or suspicious activity. Using a tracking domain aligned with your sender domain helps minimize the chances of your emails being flagged as phishing attempts.
• Compliance and security. Setting up a tracking domain demonstrates that you're following email best practices and complying with security measures like DKIM, SPF, and DMARC, which protect against email spoofing and phishing.

To add a custom tracking domain:

1. Add the CNAME entries to the DNS record provided by Pendo for the new domain. This verifies the domain as an email identity.
2. Create a new account with a Content Delivery Network (CDN), such as Amazon CloudFront.
3. Configure the CDN to the origin, which is the SES tracking domain, for example, r.us-east-1.awstrack.me . The CDN must pass the Host header supplied by the requester to the origin. Reference the table below for the right tracking domain:

   Pendo datacenter	Tracking domain
   US	r.us-east-1.awstrack.me
   Europe	r.eu-west-1.awstrack.me

4. Continue with DNS configuration:
   1. Option A. If you use Route 53 to manage the DNS configuration for your domain, and CloudFront is your CDN, create an alias record in Route 53 that refers to your CloudFront distribution. For more information, see Creating records by using the Amazon Route 53 console.
   2. Option B. In the DNS configuration for your subdomain, add a CNAME record that refers to the address of your CDN.
5. Acquire an SSL certificate from a trusted Certificate Authority. The certificate should cover both the subdomain you created in step 1 and the CDN you configured in steps 3 to 5.
6. Upload the certificate to the CDN.

Verify the custom tracking domain setup

After setting up your custom tracking domain, there are a number of steps to follow to ensure the custom tracking domain is fully enabled and functioning properly:

1. Reach out to Pendo to enable the tracking feature.
2. After Pendo enables the feature, verify the following to ensure everything is working as expected:
   1. Confirm that the links in your emails are being replaced with your custom tracking domain.
   2. Check that all links in your emails can be opened successfully by recipients.
   3. Ensure that analytics data, such as Page views and Feature clicks, are being collected correctly and are visible in your reports. This might take up to an hour to appear in Pendo.

If you encounter any issues during this process, contact the Pendo support team for assistance.