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      How To Host Your Referral Program On Your Own Domain

      By default, your referral program is hosted on Referral Factory’s domain, but you can host it on your own custom domain if you prefer.

      In this help guide, we're going to show you what is a campaign default domain and how you can use our referral program software to host your referral program on your own/custom domain.

      In this guide, we'll cover👇


      1. What Is A Campaign Default Domain? 
      2. How You Can Set Your Referral Program On Your Own Domain
      3. How You Can Connect Your Own Domain To Your Referral Program
      4. Examples of DNS Settings For Different Providers

      1. What Is A Campaign Default Domain? 

      The campaign default domain is the default domain your referral program lives on. It is the domain that is visible in the join link for your referral campaign.

      With our referral program software, by default your campaign lives on a subdomain of Referral Factory.

      your business name + referral-factory.com = default domain

      campaign_default_domain

       

      An example of a campaign default domain 👇

      default_campaign_domain_example

      2. How You Can Set Up Your Referral Program On Your Own Domain?

      Our referral program software gives you the option to host your referral program on your own domain - this means that your referral program can live on a custom domain of your choosing. 

      While not a requirement to launch your referral program, hosting your referral program on your own domain does have its advantages. It gives you more brand consistency because your campaign will not have referral-factory.com in the URL. This is one of the ways you can white-label your referral program. 

       

      Please Note: setting your referral program on your own domain is not a required option. You can continue using Referral Factory with the default domain option. 

       

      What you’ll need to host your referral program on your own domain:

      • A domain that you own and have access to.
      • Administrative access to your domain's DNS with your domain hosting provider.
      • An active Referral Factory subscription.

      Follow these steps below to get started 👇

      • Log in to your Referral Factory account.
      • Navigate to the Add Ons tab on the left-hand side.
      • Toggle on the option to add your own domain. 

      adding_your_own_domain

       

      • A pop-up will appear asking you to confirm that you would like to add your own domain to your current subscription. Click Confirm.

      adding_your_own_domain_confirmation

       

      Please Note: as this is an add-on feature when you enable this, you will be billed monthly for this feature in addition to the subscription plan you are on. 

       

      When using our referral program software, we recommend using something like referral.yourwebsite.com as your own domain.

      You should not use your homepage as the domain as this means your referral program will point to your own homepage. Meaning when people navigate to your homepage, they will see your referral program instead of the content on your homepage.

      own_domain_activation

      3. How You Can Connect Your Own Domain To Your Referral Program

      Once you've enabled your own domain on our referral software, you will be sent an email confirming your request to host your referral campaign on your own domain.

      Follow the steps below in order to point your referral program to your own domain.

      1. Navigate to the hosting platform you use to host your website/domain.
      2. Go to the domain settings of the custom domain you have added to your Referral Factory account.
      3. Find and click on the Manage button, and from there you should be able to navigate to your DNS settings (this could be called DNS Settings or Manage DNS).
      4. In the DNS Manager section, look for the CNAME (Alias) records, then click Add Record.
      5. Fill in the form fields with the following values:
      6. The type will be CNAME.
      7. Host Record will be the subdomain you want to publish your campaigns to - this will be a subdomain on your own website. For example: if your custom domain added in Referral Factory is referrals.website.com, the Host Record value must be referrals).
      8. Points To or Will Redirect To value, this must be redirect.referral-factory.com
      9. TTL can be left as-is or set to a default of 4 hours, or 14400 seconds.
      10. Click Save to add the record.

      Below is an example of what you will see 👇

      set_referral_campaign_on_your_own_domain

       

      Please Note: you will need to wait 24-48 hours for your record to update.

       

      Once you have edited the DNS settings, it will take a few days for your new domain to be enabled on Referral Factory. If you would like to speed up the process, please send our support team an email, letting them know you have added your own domain to your subscription and updated the DNS settings. One of our referral program software support agents will be in touch with you to help you get set up and check if everything has been set up correctly. 

      4. Examples of DNS Settings For Different Providers

      There are many domain hosting providers and all of them have their own user experience and setup. Below are some of the most common providers with examples of what the DNS settings should be for each. 

       

      Something to note - Make sure the value in the CNAME entry is set to redirect.referral-factory.com

      1. How to manage DNS settings on Cloudfare

      Something to note - Make sure the Proxy Status to off “DNS Only” otherwise Cloudflare will attempt to redirect it incorrectly. Below is a screenshot to help you. 

      dns_settings_example

      2. How to manage DNS settings from NameCheap

      1. Sign in to your Namecheap account.

      2. Select Domain List from the left sidebar and click the Manage button next to your domain.

      3. Find the Nameservers section and select your preferred option from the drop-down menu. Click on the green checkmark to save the changes.

      3. How to manage DNS settings in cPanel

      To add a DNS record in cPanel do the following:
      1. Log into cPanel.
      2. Navigate to "Zone Editor."
      3. Click "Manage" to the far right of your domain.
      4. Click the drop-down menu on the "+ ADD RECORD" button and select the desired record type.
      5. Fill in the desired values for the new DNS record and click "Add Record."

       

      The steps mentioned above may vary depending on which hosting provider you use. If you need help setting up your custom domain, please contact us. 

       

      Referral Factory was voted the #1 software for referral marketing to use in 2023, by Influencer Marketing Hub. Marketers across the globe use Referral Factory to build, launch and run powerful referral programs at scale. If you want to get referrals and grow your business then you've come to the right place ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️