brand image
Today, let’s define the acronym BIMI, aka “Brand Indicators for Message Identification.”Let’s go straight to the folks who have created the BIMI specs, the Authindicators Working Group. From their website: “Brand Indicators for Message Identification is an emerging email specification that enables the use of brand-controlled logos within supporting email clients.”What? It’s a way to publish a logo that will show up next to email messages you send.Why? To increase branding, increase customer confidence that your emails are legitimate, and it can increase engagement.How? First, you must secure your domain with DMARC (and that DMARC policy must be a “strong” one, aka “quarantine” or “reject”). You must purchase a “verified mark certificate” (required by some BIMI-supporting mailbox providers, though not all) to prove that your logo is properly trademarked, and then you need to publish a version of your logo in a special limited vector graphics format. BIMI is supported by
Obtaining a VMC (Verified Mark Certificate) can be a hurdle for folks who want to implement a BIMI logo. You can proceed without it, but if you do, while your logo likely will show up in Yahoo Mail and Fastmail, but it isn’t going to show up in Gmail, as Google has made a VMC cert a requirement for their BIMI installation.If you don’t have a VMC today — here’s how you can work around that, and implement a BIMI-like sender logo display for Fastmail, Yahoo and Gmail.First, do set up a BIMI record, even though you don’t have a VMC. Here are logo requirements, and here’s what you need to setup the overall DNS record, including authentication-related prerequisites.That’ll cover you for Yahoo and Fastmail. Now, Gmail. Note that this Gmail workaround is NOT A BIMI LOGO — I don’t want anybody to get mad at me, thinking I’m trying…
It’s been a while since I’ve posted a BIMI status update, and things are changing! Things are standardizing! Things are getting good. So, let’s get right to it…