Put your own domain on every link your DMs send

Every automation that sends a link wraps it in a short one, so taps can be counted: postengage.ai/l/8fK2a. Branded links replaces the postengage.ai part with a domain you own. The follower sees your name, taps go through your domain, and the counting works exactly as before.

Before you start

You need three things:

1. A domain you own, and access to wherever its DNS is managed. That is usually where you bought it (GoDaddy, Namecheap, Hostinger) unless you moved DNS to Cloudflare.
2. Branded links on your workspace. It is included in Studio. On Free and Creator, add it from Settings, Add-ons, at $7 a month or $60 a year.
3. Five minutes, plus however long your DNS provider takes to publish the change.

Choose the domain

Short and recognisable wins. go. and l. are common for a reason: the link stays short in a DM preview and people read the brand first.

The setup, step by step

1. 01

   Enter your domain

   In PostEngage, open Settings, Add-ons, Branded links and type the domain, for example go.yourbrand.com. The page immediately shows the two DNS records for it.

2. 02

   Pay, if your plan needs it

   Studio skips this step. On Free and Creator you choose monthly or yearly and pay through Polar; you come straight back to the setup.

3. 03

   Add the two records

   A CNAME (or A) record that points the domain at us, and a TXT record that proves the domain is yours. Provider-specific steps are below.

4. 04

   Press Check now

   We look the records up on public DNS. When both match, the domain moves to issuing and the HTTPS certificate is requested automatically.

5. 05

   Live

   Usually a minute or two later the page shows your domain as live. Every new DM link from that moment uses it.

The two records

The setup page shows the exact values for your domain, with copy buttons. For go.yourbrand.com they look like this:

The Name is relative to your domain. Most DNS panels add .yourbrand.com themselves, so type go, not go.yourbrand.com. If you type the full name, some providers end up with go.yourbrand.com.yourbrand.com, which is the most common reason a check fails.

Provider by provider

Cloudflare

1. Open your domain, then DNS, Records, and click Add record.
2. Type CNAME, Name go, Target postengage.ai.
3. Set Proxy status to DNS only (the grey cloud). This matters: with the orange cloud on, Cloudflare answers in our place and the check cannot see the record, and the certificate cannot be issued.
4. Click Add record again: Type TXT, Name _postengage.go, Content the pe-verify=… value from the setup page.
5. Save both, go back to PostEngage and press Check now.

GoDaddy

1. Go to My Products, find the domain and open DNS (sometimes labelled Manage DNS).
2. Click Add New Record. Type CNAME, Name go, Value postengage.ai, TTL 1 hour is fine.
3. Add another: Type TXT, Name _postengage.go, Value the pe-verify=… value.
4. Save, then Check now in PostEngage. GoDaddy changes usually appear within minutes.

Namecheap

1. Open Domain List, click Manage next to the domain, then the Advanced DNS tab.
2. Under Host Records, Add New Record: CNAME Record, Host go, Value postengage.ai.
3. Add another: TXT Record, Host _postengage.go, Value the pe-verify=… value.
4. Click the green tick on each row to save it, then Check now.

Hostinger

1. In hPanel open Domains, choose the domain, then DNS / Nameservers.
2. Under Manage DNS records, choose type CNAME, Name go, Points to postengage.ai, and add it.
3. Add a TXT record: Name _postengage.go, TXT value the pe-verify=… value.
4. Hostinger lists the new rows at the top of the table. Then Check now.

Tick it off

When the check does not pass

The setup page says exactly what it found. The usual causes:

• "was not found yet": the record has not published. Wait a few minutes and check again. Some providers take up to a few hours; nothing is lost by waiting.
• The CNAME points somewhere else: an older record with the same name exists. Delete it; a name can only have one CNAME.
• The name has your domain twice: you typed go.yourbrand.com into a panel that adds the domain itself. Change the name to go.
• Cloudflare orange cloud: switch the record to DNS only.
• It verified but never went live: if the domain has a CAA record, it must allow Let's Encrypt (letsencrypt.org), which issues the certificate. If it has been more than two hours, the page shows the error and the domain goes back to waiting for you.

After it is live

• New links use your domain automatically. There is nothing to change in your automations.
• Old links keep working on postengage.ai.
• Link insights open from the live screen, or from Links in the sidebar: who tapped, when, on which phone and from which country, with Instagram's own link previews filtered out so the numbers are people.
• If your DNS changes later, we notice within the hour. New links go back to postengage.ai until the record is fixed, and the setup page tells you what changed.

To move to a different domain, open Branded links, choose Change domain, and repeat the two records for the new one.