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Knowledge base

PMTA knowledge base›Block <signals>›Directive§ 11.1.6.2.8

tracking-domain

<signals>

The domain in inserted tracking links
in the configuration this is a linetracking-domain the vendor's own tracking domaininside the block <signals>
Whose domain the recipient will see in the link

The line sets the domain of inserted links. The default is pmta.spgo.io, that is, the vendor’s domain. It works only with engagement-tracking set to sparkpost.

🔴 The default does not suit Europe. The manual says directly: European customers must set this line — either to their own domain or to pmta.eu.spgo.io.

Your own domain is a CNAME record pointing to pmta.spgo.io (or to the European address) plus registering the domain in the vendor’s account. DNS alone is not enough.

Why your own domain. The link in a message is what the recipient sees and what mailbox providers parse. Someone else’s domain in a message sent in your name looks worse than your own, and when you change providers, links in already sent messages will stop working.

It can be set in three ways: here, in the enable-signals scope line and in the sender-or-from selection rule — the last allows a different domain for different sending domains.

The main trap is creating the CNAME record and not registering the domain with the vendor. DNS will answer, but the service does not know the domain — the links will not work. There are two conditions, and the second is outside your zone.
What the Hub does. It does not write it — and does not intend to: substituting someone else’s links into our messages would mean recipients’ clicks going through the vendor’s domain.
Recommended values

The choice here is short:

Value When
do not set USA, no domain of your own
pmta.eu.spgo.io Europe, no domain of your own — mandatory
your own domain always, when the domain in the message matters
The default, the requirement for Europe, both addresses for the CNAME record, the domain registration requirement and the three places where it can be set come from the manual (§ 11.1.6.2.8).
Example configuration
# your own domain: a CNAME record plus registration with the vendor
<signals>
    engagement-tracking sparkpost
    tracking-domain track.mydomain.com</signals>
The CNAME record must point to the vendor’s address, and the domain itself must be registered in its account.
yellow — — directive names, blue — blocks. They are highlighted the same way in the text of the card.
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Common mistakes and problems

what people get wrong and how it ends2 mistakes▶

Creating the CNAME record without registering the domain

our experience

What it costsThere are two conditions. DNS answers, the service does not know the domain — the links in messages do not work.
How to spot itClicks on links are not recorded, and the link leads nowhere.
How to do it rightRegister the domain in the vendor’s account.

Expecting the line to work with substitution turned off

§ 11.1.6.2.8

What it costsThe substitution lines work only with engagement-tracking set to sparkpost. With other values they do nothing.
How to spot itThe line is set, and nothing in the messages has changed.
How to do it rightCheck the value of engagement-tracking.
Compatibility
PowerMTA 6.0
described in the manual of this version · platform: any
The vendor does not state the first version for every directive — there is no note here. The name also appears in the 5.0 edition of the manual.
Reference data
Syntax
tracking-domain <domain>
Values
a domain name
Default
the vendor's own tracking domain § 11.1.6.2.8
Applying
reload, no restart needed
Queue
will not touch what is already queued
Where to write it
<signals>
How many times
once in the block
Everything here comes from the manual, with the section.
Inheritance
There is no inheritance: the line lives inside <signals>, and there is one such block per node. The scope of export by stream is set by the enable-signals line with three levels.
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Related directives

1 relation

Works together with

enable-signalsGlobalThe tracking domain can be set there too — right in the scope line. § 11.1.6.2.8

Referenced from

use-https<signals>Works only with your own tracking domain configured for encryption. § 11.1.6.2.9

How to check on the node
The result is visible in the message itself — check it in a delivered one:
grep -i "signals\|html" /var/log/pmta/log | tail -20
It is more reliable to look at a message that reached the seed mailbox: the links and pixels are either in it or not.
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What else to read

3 articles

◇Hand a message to a webhook instead of a receiverThe queue sends the message as a POST request in the form of a JSON object; only a 2xx response counts as success.◇The node can insert pixels and rewrite links by itselfIn the vendor’s tracking mode the engine parses outgoing HTML, rewrites links to the tracking domain and inserts open pixels — with a choice of what to do if the markup cannot be parsed.◇Markup parsing and editingOpen and click tracking in sparkpost mode edits the message markup with the built-in gumbo-parser; by default a message whose markup could not be parsed is bounced.

In the Hub
Cost of a mistake
reversible: harms only while it is set
Scenarios
Tracking infrastructure
Neighboring settings of the block <signals>:html-edit-error-modeengagement-trackingenable-top-open-pixelenable-click-trackingenable-bottom-open-pixelAll 16 directives of the block →