BIMI Basics: Showing Your Logo Next to Your Emails
BIMI can show your brand logo beside your emails in supporting inboxes. See the requirements, the effort involved and whether a small business needs it.
Brand Indicators for Message Identification, or BIMI, is a standard that lets a domain publish a logo that supporting mailbox providers can show next to its messages. It looks like a small brand avatar in the inbox list. It is a nice finishing touch, but it is also a reward for doing the groundwork properly, and it is not available to everyone. This article explains how it works and whether it is worth your time.
What BIMI is, and what it is not
BIMI is a DNS record that points to an image of your logo. A receiving provider that supports BIMI checks that your mail is authenticated, fetches the logo and may display it. Support is decided by each provider, and the rules differ. Some providers require an additional certificate before they will show the logo, and some may display the logo without one. Check the current documentation of the providers that matter to your customers before planning around it.
BIMI does not improve delivery in itself, and it is not a guarantee that a logo will appear everywhere. Treat it as a brand and trust feature, built on top of a healthy authentication setup.
The prerequisites
1. Strong DMARC
BIMI requires a DMARC policy that is enforced, meaning p=quarantine or p=reject, on the sending domain. A monitoring-only policy of p=none is not enough. If you have not reached enforcement, that is your first project. See our article on DMARC policies.
2. Working SPF and DKIM
All your legitimate mail must pass and align, otherwise enforcement will damage delivery.
3. A suitable logo file
The logo has to be supplied as an SVG in a restricted profile known as SVG Tiny Portable/Secure. That is not the same as every SVG you can export from a design tool. Many files need cleaning, since scripts, external references and some features are not allowed. The image is typically square, with a simple design that holds up at a small size.
4. Hosting the file
The SVG must be available at a public HTTPS address, and the BIMI record points to it.
The BIMI record
It is a TXT record at default._bimi.yourdomain.com. The simplest form looks like this:
v=BIMI1; l=https://example.com/brand/logo.svg;If a mailbox provider requires a certificate, a second tag, a=, points to the certificate file. Such certificates, often called verified mark certificates, are issued by certificate authorities after they check your trademark or brand. They carry a fee and a verification process, so budget time as well as money.
Is it worth it for a small business?
| Situation | Suggested priority |
|---|---|
| You have no SPF, DKIM or DMARC yet | Do those first; BIMI is not possible without them |
| DMARC is on p=none | Work towards enforcement |
| You send newsletters or invoices to many customers | BIMI may help recognition |
| You mostly send one-to-one mail | Low priority |
| You have no registered trademark and a certificate is needed | Check eligibility before investing |
A sensible order of work
- Set up SPF and DKIM for every sender and confirm that they align.
- Publish DMARC at
p=none, read reports, fix failures. - Move DMARC to quarantine, then reject.
- Prepare the SVG in the correct profile and host it over HTTPS.
- Publish the BIMI record, and check it with a validator.
- Send tests to accounts at providers that support BIMI, and be patient. Logos may take time to appear.
Benefits to expect, honestly
A logo in the inbox can help recipients recognise your messages at a glance and can make impersonation more obvious, because a fake message will not display the logo. There is no reliable public data to promise a specific uplift in opens or sales, so avoid planning around one. The real, certain benefit is that the work to qualify for BIMI also makes your domain much harder to spoof.
Even without BIMI
Your sender name, a consistent From address and a clean authentication setup do most of the work of building trust. For many small businesses, getting DMARC to enforcement is the valuable achievement, and BIMI is a bonus for later.
Maintaining it
BIMI is not a set-and-forget record. If a certificate is needed, it expires and must be renewed. If you rebrand, the logo file and any certificate must be replaced. And if a change to your mail setup ever breaks DMARC alignment, the logo will stop appearing. Add BIMI to the list of things you re-check whenever you change mail providers or add a new sending service.
Common reasons a logo does not show
If you have published the record and nothing appears, check the usual suspects: DMARC is not at enforcement, the SVG does not meet the required profile, the file is not reachable over HTTPS, a certificate is expired or missing where a provider needs one, or the provider simply does not support BIMI yet. Test each in turn with a validator, and remember that caching at the provider means changes can take a while to show.
Getting the foundations right with Zebra Hosting
BIMI is built on SPF, DKIM and DMARC, all of which are DNS records you can manage with a Zebra Hosting email plan. Our support team works in 17 languages and can help you check the basics. Look at the email hosting plans or the knowledge base.
