Tired of seeing your carefully crafted marketing emails disappear into the dreaded spam folder? Frustrated by low open rates? It’s time to setup BIMI and give your email marketing strategy a serious boost.
BIMI is a powerful way to increase your open rates, improve email deliverability, and strength brand recognition. And, best of all, it’s free and easy to set up!
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What is BIMI?
BIMI stands for Brand Indicators for Message Identification. Simply put, it’s a way to add your verified logo next to your sender name in email inboxes.
Instead of seeing a random email address and sender name, your customers see your brand logo right there in the inbox. This simple addition can make a huge difference in how your customers perceive and interact with your emails. It helps them easily recognize your emails and trust it’s a legitimate email sent by you, leading to more opens and, ultimately, more sales.
Why BIMI matters for email marketing
Let’s face it, our email inboxes are overflowing with hundreds of emails competing for our attention. It’s easy for your emails to get lost in the shuffle. BIMI helps you cut through the noise by making your emails instantly recognizable.
Think about it, we all get tons of marketing emails every day, especially during holidays or big sale seasons. How many times do you see subject lines like “Last Chance for our 15% OFF Sale!” before you tune them out?
But, when customers see your logo next to your email, they can easily tell the difference between a last chance sale, and that it’s YOUR last chance sale.
Beyond increased visibility, BIMI also enhances trust. Seeing a familiar logo next to the sender name reassures customers the email is legitimate and safe to open. This can lead to higher open rates, increased engagement, and more sales.
Also, BIMI has been shown to improve email deliverability. By verifying your sender identity, you’re letting email providers know that you’re a trustworthy sender, reducing the chances of your emails being flagged as spam.
How BIMI works
Before we get into how to set up BIMI, let’s talk about how it works.
BIMI works with another email authentication protocol called DMARC. When your email is delivered, the recipient’s email provider uses DMARC to verify the email is truly from you, and not someone pretending to be you.
After DMARC gives the green light, the email provider looks up your BIMI DNS record, which contains a URL to your logo, and displays your verified logo next to your sender name.
Because BIMI works with DMARC, you’re sending domain needs to be DMARC-authenticated with either a “reject” or “quarantine” policy to setup BIMI. This is something you should already have in place, but if you don’t have DMARC set up or don’t know what DMARC is, we’ll be writing another article covering DMARC soon.
Setting up BIMI
While BIMI might sound technical and complex, setting it up is actually easy. You’ll need a few things ready before following along:
- Your sending domain must be registered and configured with the appropriate MX, SPF, and DKIM records.
- You need to have DMARC implemented and set to “quarantine” or “reject”.
- You need a logo that meets the BIMI specifications (SVG or PNG format, maximum file size of 10KB, and square aspect ratio).
- You need access to the DNS configuration for your sending domain.
How to setup BIMI
Here’s a step-by-step guide on setting up BIMI:
1. Upload your BIMI logo to a public HTTPS address
The first thing we need to do is create a BIMI compliant logo and upload it to a public HTTPS address.
Your logo image needs to meet the following specifications to be BIMI compliant:
- SVG or PNG format
- Maximum file size of 10KB
- Square aspect ratio
If you have some design skills, you can use a free tool like GIMP or Canva to create your BIMI logo. Otherwise, you can use a BIMI Logo Converter or work with a designer to create a BIMI compliant logo.
Next, you’ll want to upload your logo to a public HTTPS address. The easiest way to do this is to use FTP to connect to your hosting provider and upload your BIMI logo to your domain.
Once you’ve uploaded your image, navigate to it in your browser and copy the URL.
2. Create a BIMI DNS record
Next, you’ll want to log in to your DNS manager. In this example, we’ll be using Cloudflare, but the steps are the same for any DNS manager you use.
Within your DNS manager, create a TXT record. Here in Cloudflare, we’ll choose TXT in the Type field to indicate we want to create a TXT record.
Next, in the Name field, enter default._bimi
In the Content or Value field, you’ll want to enter: v=BIMI1; l=URL_TO_YOUR_BIMI_LOGO (replace URL_TO_YOUR_BIMI_LOGO with the URL you copied in the previous step).
Finally, click Save.
3. Use a BIMI lookup tool to verify you are BIMI-compliant
Next, use a BIMI lookup tool to verify your DNS record is set up correctly. Enter your domain name and click Check BIMI. After a few seconds, it will pull your DNS records and let you know if everything looks good.
On the results page, scroll down towards the bottom to the BIMI Record and BIMI SVG Image sections. If everything is set up correctly, you’ll see green check marks and you’ll see the tool is able to pull your BIMI logo.
If you see any errors, you may need to give your DNS changes some time to propagate. It usually takes up to an hour or two, but sometimes it can take up to 24 hours.
If you’re still seeing errors after 24 hours, double check you set up your BIMI DNS record correctly, or feel free to reach out to us and we can help resolve any BIMI setup issues.
4. Test your BIMI setup to make sure everything works properly
Finally, send yourself a test email using your email marketing platform. Now that BIMI is setup, you should see your BIMI logo displayed in the inbox right next to your sender name.
Note: Some email providers require a Verified Mark Certificate (VMC) before displaying your BIMI logo. Check with your email provider for specific requirements.
Final thoughts
Setting up BIMI can seem daunting and technical, but it’s a relatively simple process with huge benefits for your email marketing campaigns. By following these steps and becoming BIMI-compliant, you’re well on your way to improving deliverability, boosting your email open rates, and making your brand more recognizable.
Mo Sheikh is an entrepreneur, developer, and marketer. As the Founder of Adaptyve Digital, he helps teach ecommerce business owners ways to manage, grow, and scale their business.
