BIMI Record - What is it? How Does it Add to DMARC?
A BIMI Record is a type of DNS Record used to display a company's logo inside an email inbox if the email is trustworthy. Brand Indicator Message Identification (BIMI) Records are an industry-wide effort to use brand logos as indicators to help email recipients recognize and avoid fraudulent messages. This standard has already been rolled out by inboxes such as Gmail, Yahoo!, Apple Mail, and several others.
Though it's already been rolled out by large inbox providers, each inbox's use of BIMI varies. For example, Gmail displays a blue "verified" check mark next to the sender's email address in both desktop and mobile apps if the email passes BIMI tests. On the other hand, Yahoo! displays a company's actual brand logo, but only on their mobile apps. The BIMI standard will continue to evolve with the aim of providing all email users with a robust means to visually identify trustworthy emails against phishing/spam emails posing as businesses upon their arrival to the email inbox.
Why Implement BIMI Now?
- Your domain's logo gets prominently displayed in the inbox (see below image)
- Delivering mail to Gmail users means that you get a blue verified check mark
- Improved delivery rates as inboxes find messages that pass BIMI and DMARC the most trustworthy—early results indicate a 10% open rate increase amongst Yahoo! users
How BIMI Records Work
A fairly recent improvement, most of today's email shows your brand's initials in the customers' inboxes (e.g., R signals Redbox, DT means Discount Tire). This helps current and potential clients identify and trust messages received by these recognizable companies. With BIMI records, that trust factor significantly increases because an actual logo is used in place of mere initials or lack thereof. Publishing a DNS Record automatically integrates your brand into every email sent from your domain (e.g., Best Buy logo displayed instead of BB), which allows message recipients to recognize and have confidence in clicking the message in question.
Requirements of BIMI Records
Using BIMI requires ensuring DMARC authentication is set up on the domain. In fact, the BIMI concept is viewed as an extension of DMARC. Both protocols are highly beneficial to ensuring a domain's messages are delivered and to help crack down on phishing and spoofing attempts. If you haven't set up DMARC yet, you can read more here about setting up DMARC.
Steps to Publish BIMI Records
After getting DMARC set up and ensuring it's running smoothly for your domain (i.e., monitoring DMARC performance and verifying no delivery issues moving policy to quarantine or reject), integrating the extra bonus of BIMI starts with adding a DNS Record for BIMI, then publishing your logo.
If there's been something holding you back from implementing DMARC, our Delivery Center tool will put your company on the right path to enabling and enforcing DMARC. If you've already set up DMARC, we recommend discussing your specific situation with one of our email delivery experts to ensure your business is set up correctly and optimized for the best email delivery. You might be missing key DMARC insights or accidentally overlooking important email delivery problems. MxToolbox products have everything that you need to employ DMARC and increase email delivery rates for your brand. After all, your company's reputation depends on it.
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