How BIMI Helps You Show Your Logo in Every Inbox
BIMI lets your brand logo appear next to your emails in Gmail, Apple Mail, and Yahoo. Here's how to set it up correctly without breaking DMARC.
BIMI — Brand Indicators for Message Identification — is an email standard that lets you display your brand logo next to your emails in the inbox. When a recipient sees your logo in Gmail, Apple Mail, or Yahoo, it increases trust, improves click-through rates, and signals to spam filters that you're a legitimate sender.
Prerequisites
BIMI requires a DMARC policy of p=quarantine or p=reject. If you're still on p=none, you'll need to tighten your DMARC policy first — which is good practice regardless. You'll also need a square SVG logo in the Tiny PS format (a specific SVG subset that all major email clients can render safely).
The DNS record
BIMI is configured via a DNS TXT record at default._bimi.yourdomain.com. The record points to a publicly accessible URL where your SVG logo is hosted. For Gmail specifically, you'll also need a VMC (Verified Mark Certificate), which is an SSL-like certificate that proves you own the trademark for the logo. VMCs are issued by DigiCert and Entrust and cost around $1,500/year.
"We saw a 23% increase in open rates within 30 days of enabling BIMI. The logo in the inbox is a massive trust signal."
Setting up BIMI with Sendbound
Sendbound's deliverability dashboard includes a BIMI setup wizard that validates your DMARC policy, checks your SVG format, generates the correct DNS record, and verifies the setup after you've published the DNS change. The wizard also guides you through the VMC process if you're targeting Gmail logo display.