Google’s BIMI Can Enhance Trust and Bolster Your Brand
BIMI upholds domain-based message authentication, reporting, and conformance (DMARC) to build trust in your emails.
Phishing is a kind of exploit in which an attacker sends a deceptive message to a victim to entice them to click on a malicious link or give up sensitive information. While it has been around for years, it is still a very effective attack tactic for bad actors and has only grown progressively more advanced. Dean Coclin of DigiCert discusses how Google’s BIMI standards make your emails stand out and gain trust.
Despite the best attempts of security teams globally, phishing attacks increase annually. In fact, according to research from SlashNext, a messaging security provider, phishing incidents increased 61% in 2022 compared to the previous year. It’s clear phishing is still very lucrative for hackers and isn’t going anywhere.
But there’s hope for stopping phishers in their tracks with a new feature from Google. They recently announced support within Gmail for the Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI) email standard, which promises to help enhance trust and give email recipients more information about the sender of a message. To adhere to BIMI standards, a sender is required to undergo logo validation through a reliable third-party certificate authority and incorporate domain-based message authentication, reporting, and conformance (DMARC) protocols.
The ABCs of BIMI
BIMI is a straightforward idea with substantial potential for teams who want to boost business promotion with emails and safeguard their efforts. BIMI allows email senders to exhibit their trademark logo directly in the recipients’ email inboxes. Doing so enhances engagement with marketing emails and delivers brand impressions without the need to purchase advertising space.
Without these brand indicators, email recipients see an avatar typically represented by a circle containing the sender’s initials. This doesn’t do much for your brand, as these generic messages don’t stand out amidst the sea of other promotional materials, confirmations, or ongoing threads. It is also difficult for recipients to distinguish legitimate messages from fraudulent schemes.
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Adopting BIMI Is a Win for Both Brand and Security
Adopting BIMI further bolsters public trust in your brand, indicating that your organization has taken proactive measures to authenticate its email-sending infrastructure. The logo and checkmark in Gmail serve as visual cues to instill trust in your emails among both customers and employees. Armed with this kind of cue, they will be less likely to fall for phishing scams, divulge passwords, or click on links that will download malware onto their device, setting them and the entire network up for an attack.
Besides providing visual confirmation of email authenticity, BIMI offers marketers a way to enforce consistent usage of logos. This enhances audience engagement with email marketing campaigns and fulfills promises of trust and safety. Those who have undergone a brand overhaul understand the effort involved in tracking down outdated logos across various systems and services used for email communication. The brand impressions facilitated by BIMI allow your emails to stand out amidst the usual clutter in inboxes. As your audience becomes more familiar with BIMI, they will recognize and appreciate your organization’s commitment to combating fraud and scams.
Brand indicators can be centrally configured within your domain name system (DNS) record, ensuring that any supporting mailbox provider displays your logo. This is especially advantageous for businesses employing multiple technologies for sending bulk, transactional, and individual emails (e.g., marketing platforms, CRM platforms, and corporate email).
With phishing constantly on the rise, the time is now to adopt BIMI and undertake the verified mark certificate (VMC) process. Doing so provides a competitive edge by enabling your emails to stand out and reinforces public trust in your brand.
Are you upholding BIMI standards for your brand communication? Share with us on Facebook, X, and LinkedIn. We’d love to hear from you!
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