BIMI (Brand Indicators for Message Identification) quick guide
Travelers Insurance has no BIMI and Zillow does have BIMI. From GMAIL
BIMI records are a recent email authentication standard ( 2021 ) that adds another layer of security when corresponding with external domains. BIMI allows companies to display their brand logo on authenticated emails in recipient inboxes. This provides a visual indicator that the email is legitimate.
Benefits go beyond security and also reach into brand recognition and legitimacy for marketing and outreach emails. In gmail for example, your emails will appear to the recipients with a single bland letter representing your domains first letter without BIMI and with it they will your company logo instead.
At this time, many organizations do not have BIMI established, this is largely due to the requirement of having DMARC settings set to quarantine or reject emails which are not in compliance with DMARC. Also, there is cost associated with maintaining BIMI which is up to $2,000 annually.
In short you must first successfully implement DMARC to use BIMI effectively.
Currently, there is a shift occurring in email security that is focusing on DMARC and it’s adoption is rapidly increasing due to increasing sophistication of spoofs and impersonations and compliance being forced by large email providers such as gmail.
To utilize BIMI, an organization must first authenticate their emails with DMARC, and have their policy set on AT LEAST p=quarantine. Then, they have to purchase a verified mark certificate that certifies ownership over a logo. With that certificate they can then create a DNS record to input into the domains DNS records.
Keep in mind that as of now the below email providers are accepting your BIMI records:
Gmail
Applemail
Yahoo Mail
AOL Mail
Fastmail
La Poste
Onet Poczta
Zone
Cloudmark
GMX
Zoho Mail
Zoner
And many more are on the path to supporting it soon.
You will want to examine the BIMI implementation guide on their site ( https://bimigroup.org/implementation-guide/ ) for full details.
We fully support DMARC and BIMI implementation and consulting to get you to your goal, feel free to reach out.
