A Detailed Guide to Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI)
Here is your ultimate guide to getting your BIMI record and BIMI logo ready!
What is BIMI?
BIMI, or Brand Indicators for Message Identification is an email authentication protocol that affixes your exclusive brand-controlled logos to all the emails you send out via your brand’s email domain. You may be wondering that as the recipient of the email your email client is already showing brand logos. But what’s important is who is in control of the logos!
Usually, logos are automatically curated by email client vendors, pulling them from various sources. Different logos show up depending on different email clients and devices.
BIMI, or Brand Indicators for Message Identification is an email authentication protocol that affixes your exclusive brand-controlled logos to all the emails you send out via your brand’s email domain. You may be wondering that as the recipient of the email your email client is already showing brand logos. But what’s important is who is in control of the logos!
Usually, logos are automatically curated by email client vendors, pulling them from various sources. Different logos show up depending on different email clients and devices.
How does BIMI work?
To implement BIMI, you first need to enforce your existing DMARC policy by setting it to either reject or quarantine.
After successfully enforcing DMARC you can avail of the advantages of BIMI in your organization’s email domain! Similar to any other email authentication standard, BIMI resides in your domain as a text (TXT) record.
The BIMI record(s) resides in the “_bimi” space of your DNS with the default BIMI record being “default._bimi”. The text part holds the identifier of the record version (v=BIMI1), URL to the logo (l=), and URL to the logo certificate (VMC) if available (a=).
A complete BIMI record would look like the following:
default._bimi IN TXT
“v=BIMI1;l=https://url.to/your.file.svg;a=https://url.to/certificate.pem”
The Need for BIMI and Visual Verifications
It is purely human nature to rely on things that can be visually verified. BIMI sets itself apart from typical email authentication protocols like DKIM, SPF, and DMARC by allowing email senders to display their brand logos as a mark of visual verification that can have the following benefits:
Increased email engagement rates
Improved email deliverability
Improved appearance of emails
Higher ROI on B2B email marketing campaigns
Stronger email authentication
Protection against email scams, business email compromise, and dangerous phishing emails
Maintaining a clean email list on the receiver’s side
BIMI Logo Requirements
BIMI has certain specifications while uploading your brand logo:
- One such crucial specification is that your logo image must be in SVG format. Scalable Vector Graphics or SVG is a popular format that drives several elements of modern websites and applications. Different from popular bitmap formats like GIF, JPG, and PNG, the vector graphics are made out of lines and curves which can be easily scaled without loss of detail. SVG is comparatively lighter, loads quickly, and adapts easily to responsive sizing.
- For BIMI implementation the exact dimensions of the logo do not matter as it is uploaded in SVG format makes it easily scalable. However, the image must be square and the aspect ratio must be 1:1.
- The logo must meet the SVG BIMI profile. While the SVG standard is very versatile and has a range of versions to choose from, the closest fit to the SVG BIMI specifications is SVG 1.2 Tiny.
How to Prepare the SVG File Correctly for BIMI?
For preparing a BIMI-compliant logo, the most commonly used tool is Adobe Illustrator:
To prepare your SVG correctly, all you need to do is :
- Open your company logo in Adobe Illustrator and inspect its objects to make sure there are no bitmaps, linked files, texts, or groups. Ensure that the Control Toolbar is switched on in the Window Menu to inspect the logo.
- In case your logo is image-based, you can use the Trace Image button to convert your image into a graphic.
- SVG for BIMI does not support text objects. In case your logo has any text, it appears in the Control Toolbar as “Type”. To remove text objects, select your text layer and select the “Create Outlines” option from the “Type” menu. The Control Toolbar no longer identifies the text object as “Type” but as a “Group” instead.
- Lastly, you would need to ungroup all groups to make sure exporting the SVG is a smooth process. The simplest way is to press Ctrl+A to select all objects and then click on the “Ungroup” option in the “Object” menu. You may have to repeat this process until all groups in the document are ungrouped.
Exporting BIMI Logo SVG File
- To meet BIMI SVG specifications, the logo needs to be in square dimensions. To achieve that, you need to create a new file without closing the current one. Make sure the new file is in square dimensions with a 1:1 aspect ratio, and the color mode selected is RGB and not CMYK.
- Navigate to the original file and press Ctrl+A to select all objects. Copy all objects from the original file and paste them into the new file you created in square dimensions.
- Click on the “Save” option from the File menu to save the file. In the destination folder make sure the file format is set to SVG and not SVG compressed.
- Notice that an SVG dialogue box opens up. Under “SVG Profiles” in the box, select “SVG Tiny 1.2”. Under the “More Options” button adjust the “Decimal Places” criteria to 1, 2, or 3 to preserve details, depending on how complex your logo is.
- Lastly, click on the “SVG Code” button to review the code, which opens up in a file editor. Make sure that the line starting with
- Finally, click on the “OK” button in the dialog to save the compliant logo image file.
Code Cleanup
You can use any text editor to manually clean up the code after exporting your SVG file.
- You can start by removing the highlighted section with the information about the used version of Adobe Illustrator.
- Then find the x=”0px” y=”0px” from the line starting with
- Then you need to find the baseProfile=”tiny” and replace it with baseProfile=”tiny-ps”.
- Next, you need to add the required
- Finally, Save the file and use our validator to make sure your SVG validates correctly.
Alternatively, you can instantly convert your BIMI logo into SVG Tiny 1.2, with our automated BIMI SVG Logo Converter.
BIMI Support Among Major Mailbox Providers
According to the BIMI group, major mailbox providers that currently support BIMI logo display are Google, Yahoo, Apple Mail (iOS 16, iPadOS 16, and macOS Ventura 13 or later, and iCloud.com), Cloudmark, Fastmail, La Poste, Onet Poczta, and Zone, while a much wider adoption can be expected in the upcoming years.
BIMI and The Verified Mark Certificate (VMC Certificate)
The Verified Mark Certificate (VMC) is an optional digital certificate that authenticates your domain as the owner of the logo. Though optional, it is required by most inbox providers to verify trademark ownership over logos. If VMC is unavailable, the “a” attribute in the BIMI record has to be either discarded or set to “a=self”.
VMC is imperative to organizations that have the will to enhance their digital presence and online reputation and establish their brand to be reliable and top-notch. A combination of BIMI and VMC puts your clients’ minds at ease and provides them with confidence and assurance while responding to your emails.
With PowerDMARC you can get a VMC issued for your BIMI logo on demand – contact us today!
Getting the BIMI Blue Checkmark Icon in Google Mail
Google recently launched its new feature for all domains that have BIMI implemented – announced the display of a blue tick against the sender’s name and logo in the receiver’s inbox
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BIMI requirements to avail of this feature
- Email senders with DMARC enabled with an authentication policy of p=quarantine or higher
- Senders with a valid BIMI record in their DNS
- Senders with a verified mark certificate issued for their BIMI logo from an authorized certificate authority
