During 2020 GMail and Yahoo were running pilot programs, but BIMI moved to general availability in 2021. It is currently supported by Google, AOL-Yahoo, and Fastmail, and is under consideration or evaluation at other services like IONOS by 1&1, British Telecom, and Comcast. Google requires a special X.509 certificate called a Verified Mark Certificate (VMC) – this is obtained by presenting proof of trademark ownership to a certificate authority, known as a Mark Verifying Authority (MVA), where the trademark will be used in the BIMI-enabled logo. DigiCert and Entrust are currently able to issue VMCs.

What BIMI means for your brand ?

BIMI represents a massive opportunity for marketers to grow brand awareness and customer engagement:

• Billions of potential new brand impressions
• Increased email open rates (10% avg.) to boost ROI
• Control over how your brand logo is displayed globally
• Visual differentiation in the inbox improves engagement across devices

What should you do now ?

• Become DMARC compliant (Percent option (pct) must be set to 100)
• Make sure your logo is trademarked 
• Ensure your logo is properly formatted
• Purchase a VMC