Implementing a custom domain FAQs

What domain should I use?

Let's assume your organization's domain name is mycompany.com.

Survey URL domain

The survey URL for your surveys can be customized using a custom domain. For the URL to your surveys, we typically recommend using a subdomain name such as feedback.mycompany.com, survey.mycompany.com, etc. You are essentially choosing a subdomain, which is a prefix to your main domain. You can only choose a subdomain that is not in use yet.

The full URL to a survey would then change from something like this…https://s.chkmkt.com/?e=123&h=01ABCDE123&l=en

…to something like this:

https://feedback.mycompany.com/?e=123&h=01ABCDE123&l=en

In addition to the survey URL, any survey reports (and shared reports) will also use this custom domain.

Email domain

The email address for outgoing Agile Research emails (invitations, reminders, notifications, etc.) can also be customized.

We recommend using a dedicated email address on your main (top level) domain, such as feedback@mycompany.com, survey@mycompany.com, etc. This email address should exist within your company's email server, either as a dedicated mailbox or as an alias.

I've requested my domain. Now what?

Once your custom domain purchase has been finalized, the Agile Research domains team will configure your domain. You will then receive an email from that includes the DNS records for the domain.

The DNS records should be shared with your internal IT team to configure on your company's server (the owner of the company domain).

Once you configure the DNS records on your company's server, reach out to the Agile Research domains team so they can activate your new custom domain.

How do I configure DNS records?

In larger organizations, the IT team/department would typically handle the configuration of DNS records. In smaller organizations, this might be an IT employee or webmaster. Alternatively, some organizations may have an external website agency or web hosting provider that handles this.

The exact steps vary from provider to provider. Here's some links to help articles of some popular providers:

To find help articles from your provider, you can conduct a quick internet search for "(your provider) DNS".

How do I know the DNS records have been configured correctly?

You will receive a list of DNS records to configure from the Agile Research domains team. This list will also check the DNS records that are currently active and inform you which ones are valid or invalid.

What if my organization doesn't allow sending emails from our main domain?

Some organizations have a policy that disallows other businesses to send emails from the main (top level) domain (e.g., survey@mycompany.com or really [anything]@mycompany.com).

We can provide an alternative setup that enables you to send emails from your survey URL subdomain (e.g. info@feedback.mycompany.com). Contact the Agile Research domains team if this is required.

If possible, we always recommend sending from the main domain, since it offers a few benefits, as follows:

Easier to recognize and trust — When sending out survey invitations from your main domain (e.g. survey@mycompany.com), people will recognize it and trust it faster than info@survey.mycompany.com, especially because you have likely already sent an email to your targeted audience if they have previously purchased a product or service from you.
Replies — If anyone sends a reply or out-of-office email to survey@mycompany.com, the reply will arrive in this mailbox on your end. When using a subdomain, the reply wouldn't go anywhere and cannot be captured.
Better deliverability — Your messages will have an even better chance at arriving directly in the inbox of the recipient, because email servers likely already know and trust your existing domain.

Are emails sent using DKIM, SPF, DMARC?

All of our emails are sent out using both DKIM and SPF records. You can use a DMARC record on your top-level domain.

Do I need to change my SPF record?

No, your existing SPF record can remain the same. Agile Research uses a subdomain for the envelope address (RFC5321) of the outgoing emails. Since email clients verify the SPF record on the envelope address rather than the FROM (RFC5322) address, your main SPF record doesn't need to change.

Where can I find this SPF record?

In your list of DNS records, you'll notice a mailer subdomain (e.g., mailer-us.mycompany.com). This record contains a CNAME pointing to a domain on the Agile Research end. This underlying domain contains the actual SPF record.

Do we need to allow-list any IP addresses for incoming emails?

Our IP ranges change regularly and we don't recommend allow-listing based on IP address. To obtain all necessary information to allow-list Agile Research, we suggest you send a preview invitation to your IT department. They can get all necessary information from the mail headers. If they do request specific IP ranges, send them the instructions listed in the allow-listing help article.

I'm not able to configure one of the CNAME records. What should I do?

A CNAME record cannot exist with any other records for the same name because a name cannot both be an alias (CNAME) and something else at the same time. Check if there are any other DNS records present. Proceed with caution, since the presence of other DNS records might indicate that this subdomain is already used for something else.

Conflicting NS records

The CNAME record cannot coexist with any other records. This even includes NS records. If you created a separate DNS zone for this Agile Research subdomain (e.g., survey.mycompany.com), you might run into this issue. If so, we recommend not creating a separate zone but adding these records to the main DNS zone (e.g., mycompany.com).

Can't I configure A records instead?

Agile Research uses a CDN with varying IP addresses. Since these IP addresses can always change, configuring A records is not an option

Can I use a custom domain without configuring DNS records?

Not really. These DNS records are necessary for Agile Research to send emails and accept web traffic on your behalf.

If it's only about the URL and not the emails, you could consider embedding your survey into your own website with an iframe.

You could also consider configuring redirects on your server so that you can redirect all web site traffic to point to a specific URL. For example, you could forward a URL (such as mycompany.com/mysurvey to chkmk.com/mysurvey or chkmk.com/?e=12345) so that any survey respondents would be able to enter a simple URL into the browser, before being redirected to the actual survey link.