20 Jul
BIMI
Earlier this week Google officially announced it support for BIMI and has began rolling out it features across all Gmail inboxes. BIMI is a game changer for email security as it will give recipients more confidence and information about the email they receive, which will also force legitimate email sender’s to adopt the new email security technology, hereby giving birth to a more secure email space.
BIMI meaning Brand Indicators for Message Identification, is a DNS-based email technology that allows a company to post a logo for use by inbox providers. Think of it as the verified badge for email sender’s, it not just like that of twitter but an image instead :).
Inbox providers, like, Google, Yahoo! and Outlook/Office365.com, can show this logo to their customers next to certified messages from that company. If the email is not compliant with DMARC, then the logo does not show. Since it’s certified by being DMARC-compliant, your customers will know that the message is really from you and you will get your logo out in front of more customers and prospects!
Google had first rolled out BIMI in a trial last year for a small group of users.
With this weeks announcement, Gmail now joins Yahoo, AOL, and Fastmail as the only email providers to support BIMI-authenticated logos inside their email clients.
Besides the security benefits of having authenticated logos appear next to emails, the BIMI standard also has tangible marketing benefits as well.
According to a 2018 trial with Yahoo users, Verizon said that after adding verified logos next to inbox emails, they saw a 10% increase in customer engagements, as users tended to click on emails with a logo more often, driving traffic to companies which tested the technology.
BIMI is increasing the efficiency of email authentication
How do I get BIMI for my email campaigns?
Since BIMI requires DMARC before it allows brand logo appear in Google’s inbox, Birdsenger is already fully compliant with DMARC & BIMI, this means any email sent from Birdsenger without a Custom Sending Domain, Birdsenger automatically authenticates such emails.
How do I get BIMI & DMARC Authentication for my Sending Domain?
If you are sending emails via a custom domain or email on Birdsenger, first you need to get your domain fully DMARC compliant, to do this you need to set up your own DKIM authentication. This way, Birdsenger will be permitted to display your domain’s information in your email header, which can help improve your delivery rates and make your campaigns look more professional.
To do this, you’ll need to make a few changes in your DNS records, so you may want to ask your website manager or domain registrar for help.
Benefits of custom domain authentication
Authenticating your own domain has three important benefits.
- It removes the default Birdsenger authentication information (via birdsenger.com or codeville.tech) that shows up next to your From name in certain email clients.While this works for most email clients, some, like Outlook, may still display authentication information after custom DKIM is set up. This is specific to each email client and isn’t something we can prevent.
- It can help your email arrive in recipient inboxes, rather than spam or junk folders.
- It helps align your domain to Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance (DMARC), and enables you to use Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI by BIMIGroup) to prominently display your logo in your recipients’ inboxes.
Do I need custom domain authentication?
Before you authenticate your domain to use in Birdsenger, review these questions to make sure it’s a good fit.
- Is your Birdsenger From email address associated with your email domain, rather than a public webmail address like gmail.com or hotmail.com?
- Are you or your IT team able to access your domain’s cPanel or Zone editor?
- Do your delivered emails show “on behalf of birdsenger.com/codeville.tech” or “via birdsenger.com/codeville.tech” in the sender details section?
If you answered yes to all or most of these questions, custom authentication is a good fit for you. If you answered no to most of these questions, you can keep using Birdsenger’s default authentication that’s already set up on your account.
Been Fully BIMI Compliant
Making your domain DMARC ready doesn’t get the brand logo showing up on Gmail’s inboxes , extra steps are required. After making sure that your SPF & DKIM records are in check you need to get a verified mark certificate (VMC) from Digicert or Entrust , after obtaining the VMC you can add a verified logo for all emails sent from your domains by adding a special DMARC DNS record that looks like below and points to a logo URL:
default._bimi TXT “v=BIMI1; l=https://mydomain.com/image.svg;”
Next steps for custom domain authentication
To authenticate your domain, you’ll verify it first, and then edit the CNAME records in your domain’s DNS records.