BIMI for Emails

BIMI (Brand Indicators for Message Identification) enables brands to send messages authenticated by the email clients that support BIMI. Companies can become verified brand profiles to add their logos when sending an email with their BIMI records.

BIMI aims to give opportunity and flexibility to brands to display their logos when their messages are received in the mail services. Once the BIMI setup is completed, brands can choose and upload the logos they want to show in the inboxes as displayed below:

This guide aims to provide details on Providers Supporting BIMI, Benefits of BIMI, and BIMI Setup.

Providers Supporting BIMI

Currently, not all email clients support BIMI. That's why you should consider this when you are configuring your BIMI record.

Below you can see the list of email clients that support, are planning to support, and do not support BIMI:

Email Client		Supports	Planning to support
	Google Gmail	Yes	-
	Apple Mail	Yes	-
	Yahoo!	Yes	-
	Cloudmark	Yes	-
	Fastmail	Yes	-
	Zone	Yes	-
	La Poste	Yes	-
	Onet Poczta	Yes	-
	Atmail	No	Yes
	Yahoo! Japan	No	Yes
	BT	No	Yes
	Seznam.cz	No	Yes
	Qualitia	No	Yes
	Gmx	No	Yes
	Microsoft doesn't support BIMI

Google displays the verified checkmarks for the senders who adopted BIMI on both Gmail web and Gmail application on Android and iOS devices to more clearly identify messages from legitimate senders.

Benefits of BIMI

With BIMI, you can achieve not only better visual aspects but also increased security in the inboxes. You can build trust, increase your deliverability, and expand your brand recognition.

Build Trust

Associating a received email message with a brand logo helps readers trust the sender and the message in the inbox. Once recipients identify your brand through your logo in the email preview, they are more prone to allow messages from you. Logos imply that the sender is reliable and the message is not a phishing attempt. BIMI helps you to build that foundational trust with your audience.

Increase Deliverability

Since getting a BIMI record requires a setup of authentication protocols such as SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, your overall sender reputation increases accordingly. Additionally, these authentication methods decrease the unsubscribes and spam rates and help senders to boost their email deliverability.

Brand Recognition

BIMI enables you to reach your audience even though they do not open your email and view your content. Once the recipient sees your email, they will be exposed to your logo and get familiar with your brand from the beginning.

BIMI Setup

You should complete the following 5 steps along with their checklists to set up BIMI for your mail domain. 

Step 1: Authenticate all of your organization's emails with SPF, DKIM and DMARC

This first step requires you to make sure all authentication protocols are configured. To complete these steps, you should have the sign-in information of your domain host. 

SPF (Sender Policy Framework): Specifies which mail servers are authorized to send emails from a specific domain to validate your email.
DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail): Attaches a digital signature to emails to confirm that your domain sent the message and is accountable for its content to enhance email security.
DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance): Instructs inbox providers on how to manage emails that lack authentication through SPF or DKIM.

Below you can see a checklist to make sure that you can proceed to the next step:

I have an SPF record that aligns with DKIM and DMARC.
I have a DKIM record which aligns with SPF and DMARC.
 I have a DMARC record on the organizational domain (aka root or apex domain) which aligns with SPF and DKIM.

Step 2: Produce an SVG Tiny PS version of your official logo

You need to generate your brand logo image which will be the BIMI logo in SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) format, and upload it to your domain's public web server.

According to accepted guidelines, your image should be uploaded as an SVG file, its sizes should be square, and hosted with public HTTPS access. Your image should not contain taglines or any additional text as these details will not be visible in inboxes.

Also, your web server should be hosted on the same domain as your outgoing email server. This is the domain where you add a BIMI TXT record through your domain provider and activate BIMI.

Once you've uploaded the SVG file, make sure to copy the URL (web address) of the file. You will need this URL when configuring your BIMI TXT record.

I have a logo image in “SVG Tiny 1.2” - format. You can refer to Free BIMI SVG logo converter for an online image conversion tool and SVG Conversion Tools Released - BIMI Group for some more suggestions.

Step 3: Acquire a Verified Mark Certificate (VMC) for Your Logo (Recommended, but optional)

A Verified Mark Certificate verifies logo trademark ownership and may become a standard requirement, especially for Gmail's BIMI support. It is issued by Mark Verifying Authorities such as Entrust DataCard and DigiCert.

 [Required for Gmail] I have a Verified Mark Certificate (VMC) issued by DigiCert or Entrust

Step 4: Publish a BIMI record for your domain in DNS

After you set up your domain-based authentications and generate your compatible logo, the last step is to create a DNS record for BIMI in your domain DNS settings.

BIMI record is a line of text that includes the URL of your brand logo’s SVG file. Below you can see an example record.

 I have a BIMI record on the mail domain or on the organizational domain with the correct type, host and value structure.

BIMI Troubleshooting

To check if your BIMI record is successfully configured and your logo is displayed in inboxes, you can refer to BIMI Inspector.