Valimail is proud to announce that we are partnering with DigiCert to help companies prepare for BIMI — a new standard that will increase email marketing effectiveness while stimulating the adoption of email authentication.
The partnership is aimed at helping customers of DigiCert and Valimail get ready for Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI), a new email standard from the AuthIndicators Working Group. The BIMI standard allows domain owners to specify which logo images they want associated with their domains — and email inbox providers that support the standard will display those images alongside any authenticated email messages sent from the domain.
Yahoo Mail has been undertaking a major BIMI pilot for the past year, and Google is expected to launch a BIMI pilot this year.
“BIMI is a huge step forward for email marketing, and when combined with DMARC enforcement it will help make the entire ecosystem more secure,” said Steve Mock, VP of Business Development for Valimail, in a joint press release from Valimail and DigiCert. “We’re very proud to be working with DigiCert to create a one-stop shop for companies to make themselves BIMI-ready.”
As BIMI approaches general availability, it raises the possibility for marketers of gaining an enormous number of brand impressions with every email they send. It also puts marketers in charge of how their logos appear in customer inboxes. Currently, many inbox providers display their “best guess” about which company logo to use in place of a profile photo; BIMI lets marketers specify the exact logo they want — or even change their logos seasonally or use different images for different campaigns.
To use a BIMI logo, domain owners will need two things: Their domain needs to have a DMARC enforcement policy (which prevents unauthorized senders from using the domain to send email), and they will need a Verified Mark Certificate (VMC) for their logo image file.
(Upcoming BIMI pilots are expected to require VMCs for participants. DigiCert issued the world’s first VMC for a domain that sends email at scale to CNN.com in Oct. 2019.)
As our joint announcement makes clear, the partnership of DigiCert and Valimail makes the companies a one-stop shop for brands that want to get “BIMI ready.” Here’s how that works:
- DigiCert’s globally leading platform, together with regional staffing and expertise, enable fast, scalable and automated certificate management, including for VMCs.
- The Valimail platform makes DMARC compliance faster and easier, and also offers an automated way for customers to manage BIMI configuration.
To find out more about VMCs and BIMI, check out DigiCert’s page on the topic: https://www.digicert.com/verified-mark-certificates/
For more on Valimail DMARC Monitor, our industry-leading, free solution for DMARC visibility and email monitoring, visit: https://www.valimail.com/dmarc-monitor/
