Setting up a CNAME record for any one of the domains or subdomains you have within a hosting account will allow you to point it to a different domain/subdomain. The forwarded domain will lose all of its records - A, MX and so forth, and will take the records of the Internet domain it is being directed to. In this light, you cannot create a CNAME record to redirect your domain to a third-party provider and retain a functional email service with the first hosting company. It's also essential to know that a CNAME record is always a string of words and not a number as it is frequently confused with the A record of the domain name being redirected. One of the main uses of a CNAME record is to forward a domain name that you own through one company to the servers of another provider in case you have set up a website with the latter. By doing this, the Internet site will appear under your own domain name, not under some subdomain provided by the third-party provider.