Why you should use Whitelabel in E-Commerce?

If you are using an external server infrastructure to handle your emails, there is a very high probability that your emails, when they reach the recipient’s mailbox, will contain information about the sending system you are using. EmailLabs has servers registered on, among others, the emaillabs.co domain.

This means that emails sent using them will have information about our service in their details/headers:

If you represent, for example, a marketing agency that outsources mailings on behalf of its clients or partners, the Whitelabel functionality will allow you to hide information about another service and give the impression that the mailing is managed directly by you. It is very common for large, popular brands who do not want to reveal that they are using other services to take this step.

Why is it worth using whitelabel?

It is not just about the look of your email. Providers try to protect their users as much as possible from spam and impersonation attempts (phishing) by checking both the headers and the content of the messages. Since preparing statistics on recipient activity, such as opening emails, clicking on links, or unsubscribing from the subscriber database, requires addresses to be replaced by EmailLabs (or a similar service), they can be misinterpreted by mailbox providers and spam filters. Whitelabel makes links look like part of your domain, so they are more credible in their eyes (especially if we’re talking about the same domain as used in the From address) – so you can increase the likelihood of your messages reaching recipients. Using your domains ensures that the sender’s reputation is not compromised in any way by another user’s mailing – as there are situations where an RBL will temporarily add a generic tracking domain to its blacklist just because one user’s mailing has been negatively evaluated.

Name of the sending server

The first thing that strikes the eye (e.g. on Gmail) is the information about the server next to the name of the email sender – i.e. the note “by …”. In the case of our service, these may be servers for marketing messages (marketing.emaillabs.co) or transactional messages (transactional.emaillabs.co). To remove this information, authenticate your sending domain. This will ensure that messages are signed with your DKIM key and the note will disappear.

Link tracking

This functionality is for collecting detailed data on opens, clicks, unsubscribes, and preparing statistics in our analytics panel. What does this mechanism involve? To verify whether the recipient has opened your email or not, a single-pixel image (img src=”https:// name_panel.emaillabs.info.pl/open/?) is added to each of your HTML emails. When the recipient opens the message, the image located on our server is downloaded, which is noted by us. If the recipient clicks on the tracked link in the email, he or she is first directed to the tracking domain for a split second and then redirected to the original destination. In that brief moment when they are on the tracking domain page, a click is registered. In the EmailLabs interface, you will find information about the link clicked on and the time when this happened.

To verify what a link with a trackable element looks like, hover your mouse cursor over it – at the very bottom of the browser window you will see its address:

emaillabs.info.click/?It=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYWdhdGFtZWJsZS5…

Unsubscribe tracking uses the same mechanism as click tracking – after all, this applies to the linked words, e.g. “click to unsubscribe from emails”.

When the link tracking functionality is activated, a tracking element is added to each link – in EmailLabs these are created according to the following scheme:

login.emaillabs.co/click

If you do not want the links to contain information about our service, set up a Whitelabel for the links, which involves replacing the default tracking generated by us with one that contains a subdomain (e.g. click.domain.com) delegated by you.

How do you do this? As with setting up SPF and DKIM, you need to make the appropriate entry in your domain’s DNS settings. So start by adding the record created from the example below to your DNS:

• Domain: domain.com
• Entry type: CNAME
• Value: emaillabs.co

Once the DNS entry has been propagated (which can take up to 24 hours), configure the functionality in the EmailLabs panel (SMTP Accounts tab > Settings > Whitelabel). When you click on the ‘enabled’ checkbox, the option to run your subdomain will appear. Remember to save the change.

Your own tracking domain will be used:

• in the unsubscribe link (Unsubscribe functionality)
• for tracking email opens (tracking pixel)
• for tracking clicks on links (link tracking)

Full Whitelabel

The Full Whitelabel mentioned earlier allows users to change the server name visible in the email headers to a subdomain of their choice (e.g. newsletter.domain.com). In this way, email campaigns that are sent out via EmailLabs servers will look as if they were sent directly by you. To set up a Full Whitelabel, start by selecting a subdomain that will be delegated to EmailLabs so that we can set up our servers on it. It is therefore important that it does not have a mail set up (MX record), nor is it used to perform mailings. Once the subdomain has been handed over, we generate the relevant entries, which you then need to add to your DNS settings. The process of setting up the Full Whitelabel is completed, once you have confirmed that the aforementioned entries have been entered and propagated.

Important! Full Whitelabel is available as an additional option only for PRO and Enterprise Plan users – ask our Sales Department for details.

Whitelabel and deliverability

Spam filters, which analyze each message before it is delivered, scan both the content and any implemented security features (SPF, DKIM, DMARC). You receive both positive and negative scores that make up the overall score (Spam Score), which determines whether a message is delivered to the mailbox, to the Spam, or stopped at the receiving server level. Since the default tracking domains are shared between multiple users of the same service, the deliverability of your emails is also slightly affected by other senders. Of course, the best sending tools ensure that only legitimate senders use them by carrying out prior verification of new potential users and making sure that the reputation of the servers is not damaged by spammers. Implementing a Whitelabel mechanism takes just a moment and is a one-off and can dramatically increase the likelihood of messages being delivered to recipients’ mailboxes – by using your tracking domain, you retain full control over its use and reputation – which you work to build yourself with your mailings. And that’s what it’s all about – success in email marketing is about maximizing your deliverability rate.

Remember, however, that these are not the only benefits! By setting up a Whitelabel, you gain more credibility in the eyes of your recipients, i.e. your potential customers. If they are conscious users who pay attention to details (e.g. the tracking link that appears at the bottom of their browser window when they hover their mouse cursor over linked words), they will feel safer clicking on those containing your domain and not the name of third party service they have not heard of before. Plus – you keep your branding fully consistent – all links and server information will point to your brand.

Still in doubt whether this solution is for you or wondering how to implement it? Contact our Support Team.