Maximize email impact and build brand recognition with BIMI
- Increase brand recognition
- Prevent email impersonation
- Boost inbox visibility
What is BIMI
Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI) is an email authentication standard that allows an organization with DMARC-compliant domains to display its logo next to emails in the recipient’s inbox. DMARC and BIMI work together and provide benefits such as increased trust in the sender, improved email deliverability, reduced phising and spoofing attacks, and improved brand awareness and recognition.
BIMI Benefits
Boost brand visibility and email impact
BIMI ensures that your emails stand out from the rest. The display of your logo next to emails in the email client increases brand awareness and visibility and makes it look more inviting to the receiver. To view a list of email clients that support BIMI click here.
Better inbox placement
Emails authenticated with BIMI have a higher chance of going to the receiver’s inbox and not their junk or spam folder.
Increased control over branding
BIMI lets you decide how your logo is displayed, giving emails consistency, and allowing you to ensure that your logo is always presented in the best way possible.
Improve customer experience
BIMI gives your emails authenticity and increases recipient trust and confidence in you as the sender, so they’re more likely to open it, ultimately leading to higher engagement and more effective communication.
Protects emails from malicious impersonators
BIMI enhances email security by requiring your domain to be DMARC-compliant, effectively preventing fraudulent email impersonation attempts.
Easily implement BIMI with Sendmarc
Sendmarc is here to help you reap the benefits of BIMI without the hassle of worrying about its prerequisites. We offer our premium customers a service to complete all the requirements of BIMI including the following:
Logo Trademark Registration
To enable BIMI, a company requires a Verified Mark Certificate (VMC) or Common Mark Certificate (CMC). To purchase a VMC an organization’s logo must be trademarked in an approved region. You can find a list of approved regions here. If your logo isn’t trademarked in an approved region, we can assist in registering it for you in the United States of America (US) or the European Union (EU). For a CMC, a trademarked logo isn’t required, read on for more information.
DMARC Compliance
To implement BIMI, your domain/s must have a p=reject or p=quarantine policy. Sendmarc’s DMARC services take a company’s domain/s to p=reject in a maximum of 90 days*. We offer a comprehensive platform and service to manage a domain’s DMARC policy.
*For customers on Sendmarc’s Premium Plan. Subject to the conditions of our Fair Usage Policy.
Verified Mark Certificate (VMC) or Common Mark Certificate (CMC)
Once your logo is trademarked, you can purchase a VMC for it. This VMC is a digital certificate that verifies the ownership of an organization’s logo. As of 2024, Google also supports CMCs.
A CMC allows businesses to use BIMI and display their logo next to emails in inboxes, even without a registered trademark – provided that the logo has been used for at least a year. While this is a more cost-effective alternative to a VMC, it won’t include the display of the verified checkmark that a VMC does.
We work with Mark Verifying Authorities (MVAs) and Certificate Authorities (CAs) to ensure the VMC or CMC required for BIMI implementation is issued. We then install, activate, and manage BIMI alongside DMARC.
VMC vs. CMC:
What’s the difference?
VMC
Points of comparison
CMC
Lengthy timeframe & expensive
Shorter timeframe & simpler to get since a trademarked logo isn’t required
Trademarked
Minimum one year of logo usage
You get the verified checkmark & logo display in Gmail
No verified checkmark, only logo display
VMC
Points of comparison
CMC
Lengthy timeframe & expensive
Shorter timeframe & simpler to get since a trademarked logo isn’t required
Trademarked
Minimum one year of logo usage
You get the verified checkmark & logo display in Gmail
No verified checkmark, only logo display
