What is BIMI and what does it mean for email marketers?

BIMI is a new standard for logos in email marketing campaigns. It enables marketers to easily and consistently show their logo in the inbox. This will lead to improved authenticity, trust and visibility, but will also prevent phishing and hopefully even improve deliverability. What's not to like? Let's dig in... 

So, what is BIMI (Brand Indicators for Message Identification) 

In a nutshell,  BIMI is a new standard for marketers to display their brand consistently in the inbox. There are many reasons why this is a good thing for email marketers:

• Authenticity and trust
• Consistent visibility
• Prevents fraud
• Improved deliverability (we hope!) 

Will it improve campaign results?

Add all of the benefits together and it makes for interesting potential to positively impact email performance. I think this will lead to an improvement in email campaign performance because you will be able to reach subscribers on a level of trust that has yet to be implemented in email before.

How do I set up BIMI for email?

Follow these simple steps to set up BIMI for email marketing:

• Set up DMARC
• Check your DMARC status
• Sign up for Agari
• Join the BIMI beta here

Note that you will need SPF and DKIM in place before these steps. If you need help with that, speak to your ESP or contact us.

What else do I need to know?

Currently BIMI is only supported by Yahoo! because Yahoo! are working on the beta programme. However, we hear that throughout 2019, many other providers will join such as Gmail and Hotmail.

Update - July 2020: BIMI is still very much a concept that is being explored by the email marketing industry. However, it still hasn't launched as first expected. The principles of BIMI are something that Enchant supports and believe in. Speak to your consultant at Enchant to get further insight and advice.