BIMI guide

BIMI (brand indicators for message identification) is a new and emerging technology that allows senders to have control over the logo displayed alongside their mail in recipient’s inboxes.

Apple, Gmail and Yahoo Inc. are currently all using BIMI.

Yahoo Inc. have publicly stated they have discovered an average 10% increase in open rates for email messages with brand logos on them.

BIMI is still in development so standards may change.

Up to date information can be found here: https://bimigroup.org/all-about-bimi/

How can I implement BIMI?

First, authenticate all of your emails with SPF, DKIM and DMARC.

• Ensure for domain alignment.
• Ensure your DMARC policy is enforced for both organisational domain and subdomains - this means either p=quarantine or p=reject.
• Publish a BIMI record for your domain in DNS.

A BIMI record generator can be found here: https://bimigroup.org/bimi-generator/

Gmail requires DMARC to be enforced on the organisational level.

Yahoo Inc. have stated that while they prefer DMARC to be on the organisational level, they will honour records on the sub-domain level.

Verified mark certificate (VMC) and Common Mark Certificate (CMC)

In order for BIMI to work, some providers require proof that your logo belongs to your brand.

This can be achieved through either a verified mark certificate (VMC) or common mark certificate (CMC).

VMCs and CMCs are a paid-for certification. You can find up to date information on VMC/CMC providers on the BIMI group website.

Gmail requires either a VMC or CMC for BIMI to work.

Apple states:

"Verified a BIMI Evidence Document (for example, a VMC trusted by the mail provider)."

Yahoo Inc. has publicly stated:

"We currently do not require VMCs to be set up for BIMI logos to appear in Yahoo Inc. applications. However if a BIMI record includes a VMC, we might use it to inform the overall BIMI eligibility."

Logo specification

The logo must be square, and saved as a version of the Scaled Vector Graphic (SVG) format.

Specifically, the SVG logo must follow the restrictions defined by the SVG Tiny 1.2 profile published by the W3C in 2008.

The logo cannot include any <script> tags and should not include any external links.