When it comes to maximizing the results of email marketing campaigns, email deliverability and brand trust play a pivotal role. Here, Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI) has emerged as one of the key and most impactful technologies in modern email marketing strategies.
By combining security protocols and a visible brand identity, BIMI provides businesses with an excellent platform for digital trust building. While improving email deliverability, it also reinforces brand credibility in the eyes of customers as well as email service providers.
In this blog, we will have a detailed look at what BIMI is and how it is improving email deliverability and brand trust in this digitally-focused world.
What is BIMI?
Abbreviated for Brand Indicators for Message Identification, BIMI is a standard that allows businesses and organizations to display their official brand logo against their authenticated email messages in the recipient’s inboxes. BIMI works alongside other authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, ensuring recipients that the email they have received is from an authenticated sender/verified domain.
When an organization sends emails to a list, the logo appears next to the email after it has passed all the security protocols and has been authenticated. It acts as a trust signal for the recipient, improving open and click-through rates.
In 2025, almost all the major email service providers, like Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Apple Mail, and others, have adopted BIMI, further validating its global relevance and importance in digital communication.
How to Set Up BIMI for Your Emails?
To implement BIMI for your emails, you need to follow several steps as mentioned:
- At first, make sure that your DMARC policy framework is properly in place. Set up DMARC to either “quarantine” or “reject” for BIMI to work properly.
- Next, you need to create a BIMI-compliant logo similar to your brand identity logo. The logo should be in SVG format.
- Once created, host your logo over HTTPS.
- The next step in the process is to get a Verified Mark Certificate (VMC). It ensures that you have legal rights to use your BIMI logo.
- Now, publish the BIMI records in the domain’s DNS configuration.
- At last, test and confirm that the logo appears across different email providers.
How BIMI Improves Email Deliverability?
We must say that BIMI does not directly impact email deliverability algorithms; however, its indirect impact cannot be ignored. In email marketing, deliverability is directly associated with domain reputation, email authentication, and engagement rates. BIMI improves all these factors effectively. How? Yes, this is a big question. Let’s try to answer this.
When a recipient sees a familiar brand logo alongside emails in their inboxes, they are more tempted to click on the messages while trusting them. This increases open rates, clicks, and engagement, signaling email service providers that your emails are genuine and relevant to the recipients. As a result, almost all of your emails will land in the inboxes.
Not only this, but BIMI implementation also requires strict adherence to authentication standard protocols like DMARC, ensuring your outbound messages follow email best practices. Such emails have the highest chances of appearing in the inbox rather than the spam folders.
How BIMI Enhances Brand Trust Through Visual Identity?
Adding a logo to emails in the inboxes sounds like a subtle change, but its impact is bigger than you think. In email marketing, the first impression is very important. When a user identifies a familiar logo in his/her inbox, he/she trust it. Even when the recipient is not looking for the products/services you sell, seeing a familiar logo tempts him/her to open the email at once and see what it is all about. This small visual change has a massive psychological impact on consumer trust.
Several studies have discovered that using BIMI has improved open rates up to 39% and brand recall by around 44%.
Above all, it is seen that BIMI not only improves open rates but also reduces spam complaints significantly. And why not? When someone recognizes your brand, they are less likely to mark your email as spam or unwanted.
In this advanced digital-first world, BIMI has emerged as an important element for email marketing success and business growth & recognition.
How BIMI Prevents Phishing and Spoofing Attacks?
BIMI not only improves deliverability, open rates, and engagement, but it also plays a major role in fraud prevention.
Cyber threats are on the rise as cybercriminals keep trying to harm the reputation of trusted brands through phishing or spoofing emails. These tactics result in data breaches, identity theft, and reduced customer trust. BIMI here comes to rescue the brand value and customer trust.
To display a verified logo in the inboxes of the recipient, the domain must pass DMARC validation and should have an appropriate verified mark certificate (VMC, GMC, or CMC). Hence, this prevents scammers from misusing official brand symbols or pretending to have a legitimate domain.
Essentially, BIMI ensures that only authenticated senders can use a company’s visual identity, creating a tamper-proof trust mechanism in the email ecosystem.
This combination of branding and authentication also empowers customers to more easily distinguish genuine corporate emails from malicious ones—offering them an extra layer of protection against scams.
BIMI – Enhancing Brand Perception and Marketing ROI
Beyond deliverability and security, BIMI acts as a subtle yet effective marketing asset. Every appearance of a verified logo in a recipient’s inbox serves as free brand exposure. In fact, many organizations view BIMI as a form of continuous brand reinforcement that boosts recall even if the email is not opened.
When recipients consistently see a recognizable logo accompanying messages, familiarity and emotional connection strengthen over time. This ultimately improves click-through rates and purchasing behavior. Studies in 2025 reveal that BIMI adoption can raise purchase intent by up to 32% due to improved perception of legitimacy and professionalism.
For marketing teams, this gives BIMI a dual benefit: security compliance and enhanced return on investment (ROI). Unlike traditional ads that require constant spending, BIMI’s visual presence continues to promote a business organically with every authenticated email sent.
What is the Role of BIMI in Compliance and Evolving Standards?
To implement BIMI, you need to meet all the requirements of key security and authentication protocols. Organizations must have SPF, DKIM, and an enforced DMARC policy in place. These serve as the foundation that validates domain ownership and message authenticity before BIMI’s visual layer activates.
As of late 2024, Google now accepts Certified Mark Certificates (CMCs) alongside Verified Mark Certificates (VMCs), making BIMI adoption more cost-efficient and accessible for small to mid-sized businesses. This update standardizes BIMI, allowing more organizations to align with global email authentication standards without excessive investment.
The increasing adoption of BIMI represents a collective shift toward transparency in digital communication. Inboxes are evolving into curated spaces of verified senders, where authenticity and trust determine visibility.
BIMI – The Recipient’s Perspective
From a user’s point of view, BIMI brings clarity and confidence. In a cluttered inbox filled with spam and deceptive messages, a visible logo backed by authentication protocols helps them quickly identify which emails are trustworthy.
This improves not only user experience but also customer loyalty. Users begin to associate the logo with safety, reliability, and respect for privacy. Every successful interaction reinforces this confidence, turning casual recipients into long-term brand advocates.
Furthermore, BIMI helps email clients, such as Gmail, deliver a cleaner and safer environment for users, as more authenticated emails reduce phishing reports and fraudulent activity across platforms.
