If you're in digital marketing, you're no stranger to domain reputation. You're well aware of authentication protocols like SPF, DMARC, and DKIM... but what about BIMI?
BIMI, which stands for Brand Indicators for Message Identification, is an email standard that attaches your company's logo to your authenticated emails. It was designed to help brands protect their reputations and improve deliverability. In an era of phishing and cyberattacks, BIMI helps customers easily identify your company in their inbox; it gives them a visual indication that you are a trusted sender.
Here’s a list of inbox service providers (ISPs) that support BIMI as of September 2022:
BIMI is built atop the existing DMARC authentication protocol, so you must first have DMARC set up for your domain. DMARC requires you to have either DKIM or SPF set up (though it’s best practice to add both).
Once your DMARC, DKIM, and SPF are aligned, it’s time to create a supported logo for your BIMI record.
Logo requirements (see full specifications here):
Upload your logo to your public web server and retrieve the image URL. You’ll need this for your DNS record.
Some inbox providers (like Yahoo and AOL) will accept a self-asserted logo, which is what you created in Step 2. However, certain providers (like Gmail) require your logo to be certified as being associated with your domain. To do this, you must acquire a Verified Mark Certificate (VMC).
At this time, VMCs are issued by two BIMI-qualified certification authorities: DigiCert and Entrust. Note: this process requires trademarking your brand logo.
BIMI is a text record that lives in your DNS, so you'll need to work with your DNS administrator to set it up.
After you publish your record, be sure to run a BIMI check to verify your record has the correct values and syntax.
And that's it! You've successfully set up BIMI for your domain. If you’re not seeing the changes right away, give it 24-48 hours to propagate.
