A bit of ID always goes a long way. You keep a card in your wallet at all times, and now your brand can do the same with BIMI! Swap the leather purse for a customer’s inbox, and you have the perfect place to pop your brand’s image.
So, first thing’s first, what exactly is BIMI? It’s fairly fresh to the scene, but is definitely making a big impact. BIMI stands for Brand Indicators for Message Identification. It’s a mail server’s standard that makes it easier to have your logo image displayed next to your email. It’s made using a type of DNS Record that can display a company logo inside an inbox. And you may have already noticed it in yours.
Yahoo! was the pilot for BIMI, and it was announced in July 2020 that Google is adopting the program too. With big names on board, you can be sure you’ll be seeing BIMI in an inbox near you.
Why use BIMI?
- Visibility:
Adding BIMI into your email sends is an extra step on the way to getting your email noticed in an inbox. Pair your witty subject line with your logo icon and your visibility is only getting better. Having your message stand out in a crowded inbox encourages more opens, and the potential for more interaction with your message.
- Trustworthiness:
With people becoming more and more aware of spoofing, spamming and phishing, they’re also becoming more suspicious of the emails landing in their inbox.
BIMI was designed to help users spot fraudulent emails and spoofing attempts, while helping you get easy brand recognition. Your subscribers will clearly see your emails and identify that they are in fact, from you. Recipients will see your logo and feel comfortable that it’s not someone impersonating your brand.
- Authenticity:
You’ve probably worked really hard to check all the boxes possible to verify your brand, and BIMI is really the cherry on top. It actually works alongside DMARC, SPF and DKIM to signal to users your emails are authentic and coming from you.
How does BIMI work, and how do I get it?
- Email Authentication
BIMI is a function allowed to email senders who have moved through a multi-step process. The process is used to verify a sender’s data and the alignment with their domain. If a sender can pass each step, they can get started with BIMI.
The place to start is email authentication. BIMI works alongside existing authentication methods: SPF, DKIM and DMARC – each of these need to be implemented before you’re eligible for BIMI. These methods already help in protecting recipients from malicious emails and makes messages less likely to be marked as spam. Here’s a quick rundown of these three handy methods:
- SPF record – SPF (Sender Policy Framework) prevents spammers from sending messages that appear to be from your domain
- DKIM signing – DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) verifies that the domain owner actually sent the message
- DMARC record – Domain based Authentication, Reporting & Conformance (DMARC) helps to protect your domain from spoofing
To users, BIMI is the only authentication they can easily identify and use to verify an email’s sender and origin.
- BIMI Logo Image
To make sure you’re completely BIMI-ready, create a BIMI logo image. It’s currently recommended to have an SVG formatted file designed as a square. The image should be accessible via HTTPS and have no taglines or extra text that won’t be able to be seen when used as a BIMI.
You’ll also need to make DNS changes to announce your participation in BIMI.
- Verification, Domain Owner Actions & More!
Find out all the details on how to fully implement BIMI here.
What if my BIMI logo still doesn’t show up in inboxes?
While you may have created the image and ticked all the authentication boxes you can, that doesn’t necessarily guarantee you’ll get a BIMI logo. There are two reasons you may be missing out:
- The receiver’s mail server may not yet support BIMI. While Yahoo! and Gmail are on board, many others are yet to adopt BIMI. If you find that some users aren’t seeing the logo image, they may be using a server that doesn’t support it… Yet.
- Your sender reputation may be too low to qualify for BIMI display. Look at things like your bounce rates, spam reports and opening rates. Opt to follow best practices like optimizing your subject line, having opt-in steps available and sending relevant information to the relevant list to boost your reputation.
BIMI’s Impact
BIMI’s main purpose is to help you with deliverability and open rates. While it can’t guarantee you 100% success, it’s another step in the right direction.
For those mail servers that are adopting BIMI, it’s another way to improve email authentication, meaning another chance to see your emails delivered to where they should be. Your subscribers will be able to spot and recognize your brand, making them less likely to mark it as spam.
Get a jump on BIMI and put a picture to your company name.
