Getting started with Smart URLs

Link shortening is one of the features provided in Zoho Marketing Automation exclusively to enhance marketers' convenience . Short links are preferred for marketing as you can easily send them in various forms like email, tweets and SMS. Moreover, using a short link avoids the tedious job of copying huge links multiple times and reduces the chances of link copy-paste errors. You can share, manage and analyze your short links.

If you want to explore this feature further, you have to associate a custom domain relevant to your product or brand. Let us see more in detail about associating a custom domain and getting it verified before you can start generating smart links.

Why should I associate a custom domain?

You can add your domain in Zoho Smart URL and convert your smart links into a customized smart link. Customized smart links are easy for users to recognize and promote your brand and also increase traffic to your links.

How to add a custom domain?

From the Navigation toolbar, click Engagement and choose Smart URLs.
Enter your domain and click Associate.

Then, update your DNS record to associate your custom domain with us.

Update DNS records

Login to the administrative console of your domain provider.
Navigate to DNS settings.
To point your main domain, add A record and point it to the IP address 136.143.187.52

To point your sub domain, add a CNAME record and point it to smarturl.cs.zohohost.com

Note:
Your Zoho account can be hosted in different data centers (DC). For example, if you're from Switzerland, there are chances that your Zoho account is registered in the EU data center. Therefore, the above mentioned IP address and domain's URL can change depending on the data center of your Zoho account. We have the following DCs and the URL will change accordingly:

Data Center (DC)	IP Address	Domain URL
US DC 🇺🇸	136.143.187.52	smarturl.cs.zohohost.com
EU DC 🇪🇺	185.230.212.184	smarturl.cs.zohohost.eu
AU DC 🇦🇺	103.138.128.96	smarturl.cs.zohohost.com.au
IN DC 🇮🇳	103.103.196.76	smarturl.cs.zohohost.in
JP DC 🇯🇵	103.163.152.73	smarturl.cs.zohohost.jp
CN DC 🇨🇳	163.53.93.190	smarturl.cs.zohohost.com.cn
CA DC 🇨🇦	199.67.85.78	smarturl.cs.zohohost.ca
SA DC 🇸🇦	199.67.80.89	smarturl.cs.zohohost.sa

4. Save the changes. It may take around 30 minutes or more for the DNS record updation.

5. Once updated in your domain provider, click Verify now.

After clicking on Verify now button, the SSL will be uploaded in the backend and it can take anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour for it to get completed.

Once you have updated your domain details, you have to update the DNS settings in your domain registrar and get it verified from Zoho Marketing Automation.

To know more about smart links, click here