Overview

At its simplest, BIMI (Brand Indicators for Marketing Identification) is a new DNS record that allows participating ISPs to display your company logo, or the icon of your choice, in the Inbox next to your subject line.

Why is this a big deal?

Having your logo displayed can be helpful in a number of ways:

• Your brand will be immediately recognized.
• Recipients are more likely to trust your message as legitimate, which leads to increased open rates.
• In order to configure BIMI, stringent DNS records must already be in place, which reduces the threat of your domain being spoofed for nefarious reasons.

Why does this work?

In order to get your logo to appear next to your subject line, the following steps must be completed:

1. Make sure your DMARC DNS record is set to p=quarantine or p=reject. This is a big step that can directly impact the delivery of your email. This requires your SPF and DKIM DNS records to be in place and aligned. There are DNS links at the end of this document to answer DNS questions. Publish a BIMI text record called a “BIMI Assertion Record”. This record shows the URL of your image. The logo must be in SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) format.

2. The main Mark Verifying Authority is no longer accepting Beta clients. They expect to have a solution in the next 4 months.

If I complete the above steps, will I see my logo everywhere?

Currently, Gmail and Verizon Media Group (AOL and Yahoo brands) are using BIMI.

I have many domains and subdomains. Will BIMI work with all of them?

BIMI allows you to have multiple domains and subdomains using the same image. If you want to display a different logo, you will need to purchase an additional certificate.

Additional resources

• BIMI Specs
• BIMI Group
• Agari - How to publish a BIMI record
• Syntax - ReturnPath
• 250ok BIMI KB Article