Run Your Affiliate Program on Your Own Domain
Serve your affiliate sign-up page, partner portal and tracking links from partners.yourcompany.com instead of linkjolt.io. One DNS record, an automatic HTTPS certificate, and no change to your main website.
What your affiliates see
Without a custom domain
With a custom domain
What a custom portal domain does
A custom portal domain serves your affiliate program from a subdomain you own, such as partners.yourcompany.com, instead of a linkjolt.io address. Your partners sign up, sign in, get their links and check their earnings without ever seeing our brand, and the links they share carry your domain rather than ours.
It is available on the Ultimate and Scale plans. Setup is a single CNAME record at your DNS provider, and the HTTPS certificate is issued for you automatically. Your main website is never touched, because the domain you connect is a subdomain that is not currently in use.
What moves onto your domain
Everything an affiliate touches, and nothing an affiliate should not.
The sign-up page for partners
Your branded join page, the one your invitations link to, loads on your domain instead of ours.
The affiliate portal
Your affiliates see their campaigns, links, coupons and earnings at your address once they sign in.
Affiliate tracking links
Clicks resolve on your domain and go straight to your site, so ours never appears in the address bar.
Portal sign-in
Affiliates sign in with a 6-digit code sent to their email address, on your domain.
Your domain only ever shows your program
The Discovery marketplace, which lists other companies' programs, is never served on your domain, and a link belonging to another brand will not resolve there either. Affiliates create their account on our secure sign-up page, then sign in on yours.
How to set it up
Go to Portal Branding in your merchant dashboard. The whole job is one DNS record.
Pick a subdomain you own
On Portal Branding, enter a subdomain of a domain you already own, such as partners.yourcompany.com. Use a subdomain, not the bare domain: pointing a whole website at an affiliate portal is almost never what you want, so LinkJolt refuses it.
Add one CNAME record
LinkJolt shows you the exact record after you connect. Add it wherever DNS for your domain is managed, then leave the rest of the zone alone. Your main website is not affected at any point.
Wait for it to go live
Choose Check DNS to test it. It usually works within a few minutes and can take up to an hour to spread. The HTTPS certificate is issued automatically, so there is nothing to buy, upload or renew.
Share the new links
Once the domain is live, new affiliate links, invitations and sign-up links are printed on it automatically. Links you shared earlier keep working, so there is no cutover to plan.
The DNS record in full
This example connects partners.yourcompany.com. LinkJolt shows you the exact values for your own domain, and can copy a set of instructions you can paste to your AI assistant.
Field | Value | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Type | CNAME | Not an A record. A subdomain points at a name, not an IP address. |
| Name | partners | Just the subdomain label. If your provider asks for the whole address, use partners.yourcompany.com. |
| Value | cname.vercel-dns.com | Some providers call this the target, the destination, or "Points to". |
| TTL | Default | Leave it on Auto or the default value. |
| Proxy / CDN | Off | If your provider has an orange cloud or a proxy toggle, turn it off so the certificate can be issued. |
What happens to your links
Nothing breaks on the way in. One thing does break on the way out, and it is worth knowing before you start.
Connecting a domain
New affiliate links, invitations and sign-up links use your domain automatically.
Links shared before the switch keep working exactly as they did.
Short links lose the /l/ prefix where the code allows it, so they read as partners.yourcompany.com/maya-chen.
Attribution is identical either way. The tracking code in the link is what identifies the affiliate, not the hostname.
Disconnecting a domain
Disconnecting detaches the hostname from our hosting straight away. Any affiliate link already shared on that domain stops working and returns a 404, including links in posts, videos and email footers you cannot edit.
New links fall back to your linkjolt.io subdomain. Only disconnect a domain once you are confident the old links are genuinely out of circulation, and tell your affiliates before you do.
If it is not live yet
Four things account for almost every domain that does not come up on the first try.
Still not live after an hour
Usually because: The record is in the wrong DNS zone, or the name has the domain repeated in it.
Fix: Check the record sits in the zone for your registrable domain, and that the name is the label on its own. Some providers append the domain for you, which turns partners.yourcompany.com into partners.yourcompany.com.yourcompany.com.
A wildcard record already exists
Usually because: Zones often carry a catch-all * record from an earlier setup.
Fix: Add the CNAME anyway. A record for this exact name takes priority over a wildcard, so the two can coexist.
The certificate does not appear
Usually because: A proxy or CDN in front of the record blocks the check that issues it.
Fix: Set the record to DNS only, then choose Check DNS again.
LinkJolt asks for a TXT record too
Usually because: The hostname is already attached to another project somewhere.
Fix: Add the TXT record shown next to the CNAME. It proves you control the name, and it can be removed once the domain is live.
Which plans include a custom domain
Custom portal domains are included on the Ultimate and Scale plans. On Professional the option appears on the Portal Branding page marked as an Ultimate feature, and Professional already includes a branded yourcompany.linkjolt.io subdomain, which covers most of the same ground without any DNS work.
Only the account owner can connect or disconnect a domain. If your plan later changes so it no longer includes the feature, the domain stops serving and your links fall back to your linkjolt.io subdomain. Returning to Ultimate brings it back with no further setup.
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about running your affiliate program on your own domain
Can I run my affiliate program on my own domain?
Yes. On the Ultimate and Scale plans you can serve your affiliate program from a subdomain you own, such as partners.yourcompany.com. Your partner sign-up page, the affiliate portal and your affiliates' tracking links all load on that address instead of a linkjolt.io one. Your merchant dashboard stays on linkjolt.io, so your admin tools and your partner-facing pages remain separate.
What DNS record do I need to add?
One CNAME record. Set the Name to your subdomain label, for example partners, and the Value to cname.vercel-dns.com. Leave TTL on its default and turn off any proxy or CDN toggle, such as Cloudflare's orange cloud, so the certificate can be issued. LinkJolt shows the exact values for your domain after you connect it, and it can copy a full set of instructions you can paste to an AI assistant or send to whoever manages your DNS.
Do I need to buy an SSL certificate?
No. The HTTPS certificate is issued automatically once your DNS record resolves, usually within minutes, and it renews on its own. There is nothing to buy, upload or configure, and no certificate expiry to diarise.
Will connecting a custom domain affect my main website?
No. You connect a subdomain such as partners.yourcompany.com, and adding a record for that one name changes nothing about the rest of your DNS zone. Your website on yourcompany.com and your email keep working exactly as before. LinkJolt only accepts subdomains for this reason, so a bare domain like yourcompany.com is refused.
How long does a custom domain take to go live?
Usually a few minutes, and up to an hour in the worst case while the DNS change spreads. You can press Check DNS on the Portal Branding page to test it at any point. If it is still not live after an hour, the record is most often in the wrong DNS zone, or the name has the domain accidentally repeated in it.
What happens to affiliate links my partners have already shared?
They keep working. Connecting a domain changes the links printed from that point on, and older links continue to resolve and attribute exactly as they did before. Attribution never depends on the hostname: the tracking code inside the link identifies the affiliate, so a sale is credited the same way on either address.
What happens if I disconnect my custom domain?
Links on that hostname stop working immediately. Disconnecting detaches the domain from our hosting entirely, so affiliate links already shared on it return a 404, including links in social posts, videos and email footers you cannot go back and edit. New links fall back to your linkjolt.io subdomain. Only disconnect a domain once you are confident its links are out of circulation, and tell your affiliates first.
How do affiliates sign in on a custom domain?
They enter their email address and receive a 6-digit code to sign in. Google sign-in is not offered on a custom domain, because Google requires each sign-in address to be registered in advance and that cannot be done for every merchant's own hostname. Creating an account still happens on our secure sign-up page, reached from your branded join link, and after that affiliates sign in on your domain.
