Tracking domains

A tracking domain is the hostname your tracking URLs run through. Clicks land on it, redirects come from it, and the tag is served from it.

Using your own is worth it for two reasons. It survives a shared domain being blocked somewhere you cannot control, and cookies set on your own domain outlive the ones a browser treats as third-party.

The one thing to understand: this is a DNS record somebody has to create somewhere else. Everything difficult about it happens in a control panel that is not this one, and it fails silently when done wrong. So the setup line is on the domains screen itself, the status column is a real check rather than a decoration — and if your DNS is at Cloudflare or Namecheap, UTMCAP can create the record for you.

#Adding one

Add domain opens with three tabs.

Type a domain — the name, and several at once separated by commas. You then create the record yourself, as below.

Cloudflare and Namecheap — pick a domain from a connected account and type the subdomain (track to start with). UTMCAP writes the record through that account, with the proxy off, and asks for the certificate in the same step. The account has to be connected first, under Tools → Integrations; a tab with nothing connected says so and links there.

Leaving the subdomain empty uses the domain itself — the root — and says so first: its existing address records are replaced, so a website on it stops answering.

The rest of the form is the same either way: a group, whether search engines may index it, whether plain HTTP is redirected to HTTPS, and where a visit to the bare domain goes.

#The record

A subdomain — track, go, click, whatever suits — takes a CNAME pointing at the target the domains page names. Ownership is proved from that record and the certificate is issued automatically, so there is nothing else to add and nothing to renew.

A domain root cannot hold a plain CNAME at most DNS hosts — that is a rule of DNS, not a limitation here. Cloudflare accepts one at the root and flattens it; at Namecheap, and most other hosts, use an ALIAS record to the same target.

Copy the target from the domains page rather than from anywhere else — it names the actual one, and the check verifies against it.

#The switch that catches people

If your DNS is already on Cloudflare, set the record to DNS only — the grey cloud.

Proxied, Cloudflare answers the name from your own zone, the CNAME never becomes visible from outside, and verification waits forever for a record it cannot see. Nothing is broken and nothing says so; the status simply never leaves pending.

Records written through a connected Cloudflare account are always DNS only. Anyone not on Cloudflare has no such switch and needs to do nothing.

#Waiting

A new domain is usually serving within a few minutes of its record resolving. Until then the status can sit on pending; it is waiting for your record, not failing.

The list shows DNS and HTTPS as separate states, and in that order: the name has to resolve here before a certificate can be issued for it. HTTPS pending with DNS green is the normal middle of a working setup.

Points here · waiting, in amber, means the record is right and the domain is still being set up — check again in a few minutes.

Last check says what the last check found, and when. Two things can appear in it that ask something of you:

• A TXT record, in an amber box. Occasionally the certificate provider wants one to confirm who owns the name before it routes traffic for it. Copy the name and value with the buttons beside them and add it at your DNS host — or press the cloud button on the row, and a connected account writes it.
• "Answers, but not from this tracker" — the name resolves to something else. The CNAME is missing, points somewhere else, or is proxied.

#Connecting a DNS provider

Under Tools → Integrations you can connect the accounts that hold your DNS — several per provider, each under a name you choose — and have UTMCAP create records itself.

That exists for exactly the reason above: this is the one step of adding a domain that people reliably get wrong, because it happens in somebody else's control panel and fails quietly. Doing it through a connected account removes the typo and the grey-cloud switch in one move.

A domain added by typing it can be pointed the same way afterwards: the cloud button on its row writes the record through whichever connected account holds it.

#Removing one

The list shows how many Campaigns run through each domain. Removing a domain those campaigns still use breaks every live tracking URL pointing at it — ads keep spending, clicks stop arriving.

Move the campaigns first, then remove the domain.