Introducing custom domains

Custom domains look great and have recently becomes a requirement for Custom Conversions functionality in your Facebook Pixel powered ad campaigns. As this is quite an advanced feature and it costs us dollar to run, it's available to Pro Business plan customers only.

Custom Domains can be a little tricky to setup so I'm going to give an overview of some of the things you should consider.

Buy your domain

If you don't have a domain already you can purchase one from 1000s of different places. I usually use name.com or Cloudflare as they are affordable, trustworthy and have good features. You should expect to pay something in the region of $10-30/year depending on the type of domain. I would personally avoid GoDaddy as there have some limiting functionality which make setup harder.

Choose a link

Now you've got the domain, you need to choose which domain/link you'd like to point to your Songwhip artist. If you already have a website up and running on your 'root' domain (eg. at youdomain.com) you'll need to choose a 'subdomain' to point to your Songwhip instead (eg. links.yourdomain.com, music.yourdomain.com, whatever.yourdomain.com).

Tell us your chosen domain

Once you'd chosen you domain you can contact us (DM, email, whatever) with your domain choice and the Songwhip artist link you'd like to point the domain at. We can then associate this domain with your account, which should only take a minute.

Login to your domain account

Finally you'll need to go to the website you bought the domain from and login to your account to point your chosen domain to Songwhip. You can do this from a section called something like 'DNS' (which stands for Domain Name Servers).

Point your chosen domain at Songwhip's servers

This step is slightly different depending on whether you are using a 'subdomain' (eg. something.yourdomain.com) or what they call an 'apex' or 'root' domain (eg. yourdomain.com).

Using a subdomain

Using a subdomain (eg. links.yourdomain.com) is the simplest setup. Once inside your domain providers dashboard:

1. Create a new 'CNAME' record
2. Set the 'Name' to the bit you want before your domain (eg. link)
3. Set the 'Target' to cname.songwhip.com

This varies slightly between providers but it should look a bit like this:

Using an Apex root domain

Pointing an apex/root domain (eg. yourdomain.com) at Songwhip is a little more involved.

1. Create or edit your existing A @ record
2. Set Name as: @
3. Set IP address as: 34.120.230.5
4. Click Save
5. Create a new TXT record
6. Set name as: @
7. Set Context as: apex=cname.songwhip.com
8. Click Save

Using an Apex/root domain with Cloudflare

If you're using Cloudflare for your DNS you can use a CNAME record for apex/root domains, which is a bit simpler.

1. Create a new CNAME record (or edit existing)
2. Set Name to @
3. Set Target to cname.songwhip.com
4. Set 'Proxy status' to 'DNS only' (grey cloud)
5. Click Save