Setting up a CNAME record for each of the domain addresses or subdomains that you have within a hosting account will permit you to direct it to a different domain/subdomain. The forwarded domain address will lose all of its records - A, MX and so forth, and will take the records of the domain it is being forwarded to. In this light, you can't set up a CNAME record to redirect your domain name to a third-party company and keep a working e-mail service with the first hosting company. Also, it is very important to know that a CNAME record is always a string of words and not a number because it is regularly confused with the A record of the Internet domain being forwarded. One of the main uses of a CNAME record is to point a domain address that you own through one provider to the servers of some other company assuming you have created a website with the latter. That way, the site will appear under your own domain name, not under some subdomain provided by the third-party provider.