Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI) is an email spec that allows email senders to display a brand or company logo alongside email messages when displayed in different email applications and webmail platforms. It helps to promote trust and security by requiring proper underpinnings of email authentication and a Yahoo study indicated that the logo display can increase chances that recipients will interact with your email messages.
The BIMI specification is overseen by a collaborative email industry group known as the AuthIndicators Working Group, comprised of email senders, email receivers, email security and deliverability experts.
Which mailbox providers and webmail platforms will display BIMI logos? As of January 2024:
Supports BIMI: Apple (iOS and MacOS email clients), Cloudmark, Fastmail, Gmail, La Poste, Onet Poczta, Yahoo Mail and Zone. (This also includes Pobox, AOL/Netscape, and Google for Business/Gsuite mailboxes).
Apple's support is unique in that they not only provide BIMI logo support for recipients with Apple-hosted mailboxes (icloud.com, me.com, mac.com) but, in addition, Apple Mail on iOS will show BIMI logos for a recipient with a mailbox at any domain as long as that domain's host publishes proper email headers. Currently the only entity seemingly publishing these headers is Fastmail; but one expects that other mailbox providers will follow. This means that Gmail could help drive BIMI logo support beyond the Gmail mobile application and if they are willing to publish the necessary email headers, Gmail users could benefit from BIMI logos even when using Apple's mail client.
Google and Apple require that a company publishing a BIMI record must obtain a VMC (verified mark certificate) to implement BIMI. Meaning that if you self-publish a BIMI record without an appropriate VMC certificate in place, your BIMI logo will not display for Gmail and Apple users. To obtain a VMC incurs an extra cost ($1000+ annually) and requires that you have a trademarked logo. Not necessarily easy or doable for smaller (or non-marketing) senders.
Those who wish to "hack the process" and display a logo for Gmail subscribers (without having obtained a VMC) can implement a sender logo on a per-email basis for sending email addresses. It works fine today, but it's a loophole that Google could choose to close in the future. More information here.
Note also that Gmail is implementing a blue "verified" checkmark to be shown alongside the from address domain of BIMI-verified senders. Find more information here.
Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI) is an email spec that allows email senders to display a brand or company logo alongside email messages when displayed in different email applications and webmail platforms. It helps to promote trust and security by requiring proper underpinnings of email authentication and a Yahoo study indicated that the logo display can increase chances that recipients will interact with your email messages.
The BIMI specification is overseen by a collaborative email industry group known as the AuthIndicators Working Group, comprised of email senders, email receivers, email security and deliverability experts.
Which mailbox providers and webmail platforms will display BIMI logos? As of January 2024:
Implementation Considerations:
Apple's support is unique in that they not only provide BIMI logo support for recipients with Apple-hosted mailboxes (icloud.com, me.com, mac.com) but, in addition, Apple Mail on iOS will show BIMI logos for a recipient with a mailbox at any domain as long as that domain's host publishes proper email headers. Currently the only entity seemingly publishing these headers is Fastmail; but one expects that other mailbox providers will follow. This means that Gmail could help drive BIMI logo support beyond the Gmail mobile application and if they are willing to publish the necessary email headers, Gmail users could benefit from BIMI logos even when using Apple's mail client.
Click here to learn more about Apple support of BIMI. Apple also publishes a BIMI support page.
Google and Apple require that a company publishing a BIMI record must obtain a VMC (verified mark certificate) to implement BIMI. Meaning that if you self-publish a BIMI record without an appropriate VMC certificate in place, your BIMI logo will not display for Gmail and Apple users. To obtain a VMC incurs an extra cost ($1000+ annually) and requires that you have a trademarked logo. Not necessarily easy or doable for smaller (or non-marketing) senders.
Those who wish to "hack the process" and display a logo for Gmail subscribers (without having obtained a VMC) can implement a sender logo on a per-email basis for sending email addresses. It works fine today, but it's a loophole that Google could choose to close in the future. More information here.
Note also that Gmail is implementing a blue "verified" checkmark to be shown alongside the from address domain of BIMI-verified senders. Find more information here.
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