App-Specific Sign-In Experiences with Branding Themes in Microsoft Entra
For years, Microsoft Entra branding has been a tenant-wide decision. That’s fine when one identity maps to one audience — but most tenants don’t work that way anymore. A single tenant often serves employees, partners, contractors, and customer-facing apps at once, and they shouldn’t all see the same sign-in page. Branding themes, now in Public Preview, let you build multiple, app-specific sign-in experiences instead of forcing one look and feel onto everything.
What the feature does
Branding themes let you create distinct sign-in experiences and assign each one to specific applications. Rather than a single tenant-wide template, you define multiple themes — each with its own layout, header and footer elements, background, logos, and custom sign-in text — and target them at the apps that should use them.
The result is context-aware authentication. A partner portal can carry partner-facing branding and messaging, while an internal workforce app keeps its own identity, all within the same tenant.
Why it matters
- Reinforce context at sign-in so users immediately recognize where they are and which experience they’re entering.
- Reduce friction across a mixed portfolio where one generic page can confuse users moving between very different apps.
- Tailor messaging per audience — partners, contractors, and employees can each get the cues and wording that fit their journey.
How to enable it
Branding themes are in Public Preview, so test your themes against real apps and audiences before rolling them out broadly.
- In the Microsoft Entra admin center, go to Entra ID > Custom branding > Branding themes.
- Select Create new theme and choose the applications that should use it.
- Configure layout, header and footer elements, background, logos, and any custom sign-in text.
- Preview the experience, save it, and apply the theme to the targeted apps.
Where it fits
Sign-in pages do more than look polished — they’re a trust signal. When a user lands on a page that matches the app and audience they expect, they’re more confident they’re in the right place and less likely to second-guess the prompt. That clarity also has a quiet security benefit: consistent, recognizable branding makes spoofed or look-alike pages easier to spot. For organizations consolidating multiple audiences into one tenant, branding themes close the gap between a single identity platform and the distinct experiences each app deserves.
Conclusion
This is a simple feature with outsized impact on user clarity. If your tenant supports a mix of workforce, partner, and customer-facing apps, branding themes let you give each one an experience that fits — without standing up separate tenants or compromising on a one-size-fits-all page. Start with a couple of high-traffic apps, validate the experience, and expand from there.
