Overview

Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI) is an email standard that lets you display your brand logo next to your emails in a recipient's inbox.

Some emails you receive show a brand logo while others don't. This difference exists because some brands have configured their domain to implement BIMI, following a set of technical requirements. Email servers verify this domain configuration before deciding whether to display your logo. Ultimately these requirements exist to prevent abuse. Without them, any sender could attach a brand's logo to a fraudulent email, making scams harder to detect.

Who is behind BIMI?

The Authindicators Working Group maintains the BIMI standard. Formed in 2019, this group of industry participants developed the technical specification that defines BIMI. Many major email providers have since implemented support for this specification.

Why implement BIMI?

BIMI offers several benefits, each with varying degrees of relevance given what's important to you and your organization.

• Customer protection. Most email authentication standards operate invisibly to end users. A BIMI logo gives customers a visible, verifiable signal that a message actually originated from your organization.
• Brand recognition - According to the marketing rule of 7 customers typically need repeated exposure to a brand before they make a purchasing decision. A logo displayed on every email contributes to that exposure.
• Visual consistency - A logo gives your emails a more polished, professional appearance, which reflects positively on your brand.

Some sources cite increased email engagement, reportedly 10–20% higher open rates, as a benefit of BIMI. However these claims are largely anecdotal. You may see an improvement in engagement after implementation, but it's better to not treat it as a primary justification for adopting BIMI.

Challenges to expect

Implementing BIMI is worthwhile, but the process involves some complexity. Consider the following before you begin.

• Email authentication prerequisites. BIMI builds on existing email authentication standards, so a successful implementation requires your organization's overall email security and authentication posture to meet certain requirements. If you make these changes without care, servers you use to send email (including marketing platforms) may have messages rejected by receiving mail servers unless they're properly configured.
• Cross-team coordination. Implementing BIMI touches multiple parts of your organization, including security, IT/infrastructure, and sales. Your security and infrastructure teams will need to make changes to your Domain Name System (DNS) records, and your sales team should be prepared for the company logo to appear in place of any personal photos they currently use in outbound email.
• Mark certificate purchase. BIMI requires a Mark Certificate issued by a Certificate Authority (CA) such as GlobalSign, SSL.com, or DigiCert. The CA must manually review and verify your business information before issuing the certificate, which can be a lengthy process. Checkout the mark certificates guide for guidance on how you can prepare and prevent any validation issues during the business verification process.

Of the three approved mark certificate issuers listed above, we recommend GlobalSign because we've found their business validation process to be the smoothest and their team the most reliable to work with.