Claim an SSL Certificate for Your Custom Domain
Learning Objectives
After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:
- Describe why you need an SSL certificate for your delegated domain.
- Evaluate the prerequisites for securing an SSL certificate.
- Secure an SSL certificate for your delegated domain.
You Need an SSL Certificate
Trust is Salesforce’s number one value, and it’s pretty important when it comes to securing transactions on the internet. You might exchange funds or personal information in a virtual interaction, and you need to know exactly who is on the other end of that transaction to feel safe. This kind of trust is essential for marketing interactions like asking potential customers for their contact information and other personal attributes, including where they live or work.
We can’t safeguard the entire internet, but we can help you secure domains associated with Marketing Cloud Engagement and any custom domains you may use for Marketing Cloud Engagement activities. Specifically, you can use SSL certificates to help secure domains associated with these Marketing Cloud Engagement functionalities.
- CloudPages
- pub.example.com
- cloud.example.com
- Email tracking links
- click.example.com
- Email view-as-a-web-page links
- view.example.com
- Content Builder content
- image.example.com
Each of these domains requires its own SSL certificate, but trust is worth the extra effort. These certificates add a layer of encryption to the transfer of information, including potentially sensitive material. The encryption helps prevent the information from getting into the wrong hands.
And the best part of this process is that you can get these certificates right from Marketing Cloud Engagement! Navigating the intricacies of configuring SSL certificates isn’t something everybody has the time and inclination to do, so we built the functionality directly into the Setup section of Marketing Cloud Engagement. Simply navigate there, and you’re ready to go!
Set the Stage
Well, you’re almost ready to go. You do have to consider some prerequisites. First, Marketing Cloud Engagement can only secure domains that have been delegated to us to manage. To do this, configure a Sender Authentication Package (SAP) for your Marketing Cloud Engagement tenant. Once configured, Marketing Cloud Engagement can handle traffic to and from only the custom domain or subdomain through our DNS servers. Since we’re handling the server traffic, we can secure that traffic. You also need to make sure you purchase enough certificates to cover all of your activities. And for your convenience, Marketing Cloud Engagement automatically handles certificate renewals.
Before You Begin
We assume you are a Marketing Cloud Engagement admin with the proper permissions to secure an SSL certificate. If you’re not an admin for Marketing Cloud Engagement, that’s OK. Read along to learn how your administrator would take the steps in a production org. Don’t try to follow these steps in your Trailhead Playground. Marketing Cloud Engagement isn’t available in the Trailhead Playground.
Let’s take a look at how fictional outdoor gear and apparel retailer Northern Trail Outfitters (NTO) handles securing SSL certificates for their custom domains.
Secure Your Certificate
Warren Mehta is an IT systems specialist for Northern Trail Outfitters, and he needs to get SSL certificates to secure NTO’s subdomains. After a quick read through the documentation, he’s ready to complete these simple steps!
- Warren logs in to the top-level Marketing Cloud Engagement account, clicks on his name, then selects Setup.
- In Setup, he searches for
Domain SSL Certificatesand selects that option. - He reviews the list of available domains, then clicks the arrow next to the first appropriate domain and selects Secure this Domain.
- He enters his email address in the Confirm Secure Domain Settings window and clicks Confirm.
- He repeats this process for each domain he needs to secure.
To set expectations, this isn’t an instantaneous process. Each certificate can take about 10 days to complete. But Warren can track the process by returning to the Domain SSL Certificates page and checking the status of each request on a screen that looks like this.
A Secured value indicates that the process completed successfully. Now NTO has an added layer of security and confidence to go along with their well-marketed products.
Simple enough, right? If you have your SAP and custom domains already configured, this process saves you a lot of time and effort. And it helps maintain customer trust—the ultimate goal.