Every day, your business sends emails to customers, prospects, and partners. But in a crowded inbox, how do recipients know that email is genuinely from you — and not a phishing attempt designed to look like it is? That is exactly the problem that BIMI was built to solve.
What is BIMI?
BIMI — Brand Indicators for Message Identification — is an email security standard that displays your verified company logo next to your emails in your recipients' inbox. Think of it as a verified badge that proves an email is authentically from your organisation. Instead of an anonymous grey circle or a random set of initials, your recipients see your brand logo, prominently and automatically, in email clients like Gmail and Apple Mail.
Introduced in 2021, BIMI has rapidly gained adoption among security-conscious organisations worldwide. It works by combining strong email authentication with a verified digital certificate that confirms your logo belongs to your brand. The result is an email that is not just secure — it is instantly recognisable.
Why It Matters: The Numbers
The business case for BIMI is compelling. Research consistently shows that a verified logo in the inbox drives meaningful improvements in engagement, trust, and brand recall.
| 39% Increase in email open rates | 44% Boost in brand recall | 34% Rise in purchase likelihood |
Real-world results back these figures up. TalkTalk, one of the UK's largest telecoms providers, reported a 4–6% improvement in email engagement after deploying BIMI across 29 million authenticated emails annually — a result their marketing team described as highly significant given how much effort and budget it typically takes to move open rates by even 2–3%.
"Email marketing teams will spend so much money getting a 2–3% email open rate increase. So for TalkTalk, 4–6% is very positive. BIMI has made a measurable change."
— TalkTalk Marketing Team, via Red Sift
Beyond open rates, there is also a growing competitive dimension. As more organisations deploy BIMI, those who have not will increasingly stand out — for the wrong reasons. An unverified sender next to a BIMI-enabled one simply looks less trustworthy.
What Do You Need to Deploy BIMI?
BIMI is not a standalone switch you can flip overnight — it is the visible reward for having a solid email security foundation already in place. Here is what is required:
BIMI Requirements
- DMARC at enforcement level — Your domain needs DMARC configured at a policy of p=quarantine or p=reject, ensuring unauthorised senders cannot use your domain.
- SPF and DKIM authentication — These protocols verify that your emails are sent from authorised servers and have not been tampered with in transit.
- A Verified Mark Certificate (VMC) or Common Mark Certificate (CMC) — A digital certificate issued by an approved authority that confirms your logo is legitimately yours. A VMC requires a registered trademark.
- An SVG-formatted logo — Your logo needs to be in a specific scalable vector format that meets BIMI specifications.
- A BIMI DNS record — A simple DNS entry that points email clients to your logo and certificate.
If that list looks technical, do not worry — you do not need to manage any of it yourself. That is where Dataway and our partner Red Sift come in.
How Dataway and Red Sift Can Help
Dataway has partnered with Red Sift, the leading email security and brand protection platform, to offer a complete end-to-end BIMI deployment service for Irish and international businesses. Using Red Sift's OnDMARC platform, we guide organisations from wherever they currently are in their email security journey — all the way through to full BIMI certification.
If you do not yet have DMARC enforcement in place, Red Sift's tooling can get you there in as little as six to eight weeks. The platform automates the complex parts — discovering all your email-sending sources, managing SPF records dynamically, validating your logo format before submission, and handling the VMC application process with trusted certificate authorities. Everything is managed from a single dashboard, with Dataway's security team on hand to support you throughout.
The result is not just a logo in your customers' inbox — it is a stronger, more secure email infrastructure that protects your brand from spoofing and phishing, while making every email you send more effective. In a world where email threats are growing and inbox competition is fierce, BIMI is one of the smartest investments an organisation can make.
Ready to See Your Logo in the Inbox?
Talk to the Dataway team today about how we can get your business BIMI-certified — quickly, securely, and with minimum disruption.
