Custom Domains

Why use your own domain?

Using your own domain for your phpList newsletter has many benefits, for example:

• The name of your company or organization is communicated clearly when your subscribers interact with your mails,
• Your click tracking links will contain your domain which is reassuring for your subscribers,
• Having links in campaign emails which use your own domain (e.g.newsletter.mydomain.com), for more consistent branding and customer experience,
• Having email campaigns appearing to have been sent from your own network, potentially improving the chances of successful email delivery.

In order to use this option, you will need to be able to make changes to the DNS entries of your domain.
If you do not know how to do this, ask your website developer or hosting provider.

How to set it up and how it works

This option is available if you have a PLUS account. If you would like to try it you need to follow the steps below.

Set your domain under phpList hosted account tools

Login to your phpList hosted installation at https://www.phplist.com/myaccount

Then go to  “Account Settings”, “Domain” tab.

You should see a box where you enter the domain you wish to use in the box. That may be something like:

• newsletter.mydomain.com
• news.mydomain.com
• digest.mydomain.com

Make sure you enter a 3rd or 4th level domain. 2nd level domain (mydomain.com) won’t work.

Next, click the Set domain button.

Edit your DNS

You will receive an email message explaining that the process of setting your domain has started. You will need to make the DNS changes outlined in the email. Usually either the person who made your website, your hosting provider or your domain registrar will be able to make this change. Each hosting provider or domain registrar may use a different processes or tool.

Confirming the domain

Once our systems have detected the DNS change, you will receive another email message informing you what to do next.

You will need to go back to your account page and confirm the domain. Once you have confirmed the domain, you can no longer change it. To confirm, clickConfirm Domain

Once you have confirmed your domain, the changes will be applied to your installation. This may take 24 hours to be actioned.

Ready to rock!

• All mails sent from your installation will now use the new domain, including the system messages (subscribe, confirm, unsubscribe etc.)
• All link tracking URLs will use the domain
• All public subscribe pages will use the domain

However, the domain is only active on the frontend side of your installation. You will need to continue to log in to phpList as usual, using the yourname.hosted.phplist.com address for the admin pages. This is to ensure that your account access remains secure.