BIMI (Brand Indicators for Message Identification)

What Is BIMI?

BIMI (Brand Indicators for Message Identification) is an emerging email standard that allows organizations to display their official brand logo next to authenticated messages in recipients’ inboxes.

BIMI works alongside existing authentication protocols (SPF, DKIM, and DMARC) to visually confirm that a message truly comes from a verified source.

When properly implemented, BIMI enhances brand recognition, builds user trust, and helps protect recipients from phishing and spoofing attacks that rely on brand impersonation.

How BIMI Works

BIMI doesn’t replace authentication, it rewards it. To display a logo through BIMI, a domain must:

1. Publish a valid DMARC record with an enforcement policy of quarantine or reject.
2. Host a BIMI record in DNS (a TXT record under the name default._bimi.[yourdomain.com]).
3. Point that record to a verified SVG logo file hosted on HTTPS.
4. In some cases, obtain a Verified Mark Certificate (VMC), issued by a trusted certification authority, confirming ownership of the logo.

When a mailbox provider (like Gmail, Yahoo, or Apple Mail) receives an authenticated message, it checks the BIMI record and, if all conditions are met, displays the brand logo in the inbox.

Why BIMI Is Essential for Email Security

BIMI gives recipients a visual cue that an email is authentic, reinforcing trust in the sender and making phishing attempts easier to spot.

For businesses, BIMI provides measurable benefits:

• Increased engagement – Trusted visual identity encourages opens and clicks.
• Stronger brand protection – Reduces confusion caused by fraudulent emails.
• Reinforced DMARC compliance – Incentivizes full authentication adoption.

As adoption grows among major mailbox providers, BIMI is becoming a key differentiator for organizations that have implemented DMARC enforcement correctly.

BIMI and DMARCeye

Implementing BIMI depends on strong, consistent DMARC enforcement, and that’s where DMARCeye helps.

DMARCeye gives you clear visibility into your SPF, DKIM, and DMARC results, ensuring all your legitimate senders are aligned and authenticated before you enable BIMI.

By confirming that your domain meets the technical and policy requirements, DMARCeye helps you achieve BIMI readiness and display your verified brand identity confidently in recipient inboxes.

Sign up for a free trial of DMARCeye today and secure your email domain

To learn more about DMARC and DMARC-related terms, explore the DMARCeye Glossary.