How to Add a Verified Logo to Your Business Email (Step by Step)

How to Add a Verified Logo to Your Business Email (2023 Guide)

You‘ve probably noticed that some emails in your inbox display the company‘s logo next to the sender name. This is a verified logo, a visual indicator that the email is authentic and really comes from that business. Wouldn‘t it be great if your own company‘s emails had this extra branding and trust signal?

In this comprehensive guide, we‘ll walk you through exactly how to add a verified logo to your business email in 2023. It takes some effort, but the benefits are well worth it.

Why Add a Verified Logo to Your Business Email?

There are several reasons to go through the process of setting up a verified email logo:

Increased brand recognition. Your company logo appears right in the inbox, familiarizing recipients with your brand and making your emails instantly recognizable.
Improved trust and credibility. The verified logo confirms the email is authentic and really from you, not a scammer or phisher. This boosts trust in your brand.
Higher email engagement. Because of the greater trust and recognition, emails with verified logos tend to get more opens, clicks, and replies. Gmail says verified logos lead to a 10% average increase in email open rates.
More control over brand representation. You get to choose exactly which logo appears with your emails, so you can ensure it matches your brand guidelines.

Convinced? Here‘s how to make it happen for your company in 2023.

Overview of the Verified Email Logo Process

The technical standard that powers verified email logos is called BIMI (Brand Indicators for Message Identification). Setting up BIMI involves several components:

Authenticated email with DMARC. BIMI requires strict email authentication to prove the emails are really from you.
SVG logo in BIMI format. You need a square vector version of your logo that meets the BIMI SVG standard.
Trademarked logo. Currently, BIMI requires logos to be officially registered trademarks.
Accessible SVG logo file. The logo SVG file must be uploaded to your web server and available at a public URL.
Verified Mark Certificate (VMC). This digital certificate, issued by a trusted authority, verifies you own the logo trademark.
BIMI DNS record. A special DNS record for your domain ties it all together and tells email providers where to find your logo.

Don‘t worry, we‘ll go through each of these steps in detail. But first, make sure you have the prerequisites in place.

Prerequisites for a Verified Email Logo

Before you start the BIMI process, check that you have:

Custom domain email address. Your business email must use your own domain name (not a @gmail.com or @yahoo.com address). If you don‘t have this set up already, see our guides on how to create a professional email address or use email hosting with your web hosting.
DMARC email authentication. This is a huge topic on its own – see our guide on how to set up DMARC to get started.
HTTPS website. Your website must support secure HTTPS connections. HTTPS is required to serve the SVG logo file. Most websites already use HTTPS today, but see our guide on how to add a free SSL certificate if you still need to set it up.

Got all that? Let‘s dive into the step-by-step process.

Step 1: Create a BIMI-Compliant SVG Logo

The first hands-on step is producing a version of your logo that meets the BIMI SVG standard. The key requirements are:

Vector SVG format. It must be a vector .svg file, not a raster image like a JPG or PNG.
Square aspect ratio. The logo should be designed to display well in a square shape. Email clients will show it in a square or circular crop.
Solid background color. Transparency is not allowed in BIMI logos. The background should be a solid color.
Small file size. The SVG file should be optimized to be as small as possible, ideally under 32 KB in size.

You‘ll also need to make sure the SVG file is saved in the SVG Portable/Secure (P/S) format specifically. Most vector graphic design tools like Adobe Illustrator and Sketch can‘t export to this format yet. But there are some online tools that can convert a standard SVG to the P/S format, like svg2svgps.com.

My recommendation would be to hire a professional graphic designer to produce your BIMI-ready SVG logo. Share the above requirements with them. If you want to try it yourself, Inkscape is a popular free and open-source vector graphics editor that can work with SVG files.

Step 2: Trademark Your Logo

With your logo ready, the next step is to register it as an official trademark. This is a strict requirement for BIMI in 2023. The logo can be a registered word mark, stylized design mark, figurative mark, signature mark, or service mark.

You must register the trademark with an intellectual property office in one of the supported jurisdictions:

United States
Canada
United Kingdom
European Union
Germany
Spain
France
Japan
Australia
Singapore
India
Denmark
Norway
Brazil
Benelux

If your logo is already a registered trademark in one of those jurisdictions, great! If not, you‘ll need to start the trademark application process, which can take several months.

My advice would be to work with an intellectual property lawyer to handle the application. It‘s a complex legal process with a lot of nuances. Expect to spend at least $1,000-$2,000 in legal fees.

While the trademark application is pending, you can move on to the next steps. But your BIMI verified logo won‘t actually appear in inboxes until the trademark is fully registered.

Step 3: Upload SVG Logo and Obtain a VMC

With your logo SVG file ready, the next step is to upload it to your website. It needs to be hosted on the same domain that you send your emails from, and available at a public HTTPS URL.

You can upload it to your website using any method: FTP, SSH, cPanel file manager, etc. I would put it in a dedicated directory like https://yoursite.com/assets/bimi-logo.svg.

Next, you need to obtain a Verified Mark Certificate (VMC) for your trademarked logo. This digital certificate proves that you are the legitimate owner of the logo.

To get a VMC, you must apply with a trusted certificate authority. Currently, the only two authorities issuing VMCs are DigiCert and Entrust.

The VMC application process is similar to applying for an Extended Validation (EV) SSL certificate. You‘ll need to provide proof of your company‘s legal identity and trademark rights. The CA will validate this information, generate a VMC, and send it to you.

A VMC typically costs around $1,000-$2,000 per year. Yes, it‘s pricey. But it‘s a critical component of the BIMI stack.

When you receive your VMC from the certificate authority, upload the VMC file to your website as well. It should be in the PEM format with a .pem extension. I recommend putting it in the same directory as your SVG logo file.

Step 4: Publish a BIMI DNS Record

Alright, you‘re in the home stretch now. The last major configuration step is adding a BIMI DNS record for your domain. This publicly declares that you have set up BIMI and points email providers to your SVG logo file and VMC.

Here‘s an example of what a BIMI DNS record looks like:

default._bimi.yourdomain.com. | IN TXT | "v=BIMI1; l=https://[yourdomain.com/](http://yourdomain.com/)assets/bimi-logo.svg; a=https://[yourdomain.com/](http://yourdomain.com/)assets/bimi-logo.pem;"

The key parts are:

It‘s a TXT record with a name of default._bimi
It specifies the BIMI version, currently v=BIMI1
The l= tag points to the URL of your SVG logo file
The a= tag points to the URL of your VMC certificate file

To add this record, you‘ll need to go into your domain‘s DNS settings. The exact steps depend on your domain registrar or DNS host. For example, in GoDaddy, you would go to My Products > DNS > Add Record.

Paste in the BIMI DNS record text, choose TXT for the type, and save it. New DNS records can take up to 48 hours to take effect globally.

Step 5: Test Your BIMI Verified Logo

You‘ve done it! You have fulfilled all the components of BIMI. The last thing I recommend doing is testing that your verified logo is working properly.

Some good ways to test:

Send an email to yourself. Send an email from your custom domain address to an email account with a provider that supports BIMI, like Gmail or Yahoo Mail. If everything is configured properly, you should see your verified logo appear next to the message!
Use an online BIMI validator. There are various free web-based tools that can check your domain‘s BIMI setup, like MXToolbox‘s BIMI Record Lookup or Valimail‘s BIMI Inspector.
Check BIMI analytics. Your DMARC reports will include data on your BIMI performance, like how many emails were authenticated and displayed your logo. You can use this to track trends over time. Some email marketing platforms also provide BIMI analytics.

If any issues come up during testing, double check that you‘ve completed each step correctly. The validators can usually pinpoint where the problem lies.

Maintaining Your Verified Email Logo

Congratulations, you now have a verified logo appearing next to your email messages! But the work doesn‘t end here. To keep your BIMI verified logo in good standing, you need to:

Maintain your VMC. A Verified Mark Certificate must be renewed annually. If you let it expire, your logo will stop being displayed. Make sure to budget for the recurring cost.
Monitor your DMARC status. Remember, BIMI has a hard requirement on DMARC enforcement. If your DMARC configuration changes or breaks, your verified logo will also stop working. Use DMARC monitoring tools to keep an eye on it.
Keep DNS records active. Don‘t modify or remove the BIMI DNS record for your domain. Also make sure your SVG logo and VMC files remain accessible at their URLs.

As long as you stay on top of these maintenance tasks, your verified logo will keep showing up and providing trust and brand recognition for your company‘s emails.

BIMI Adoption and Compatibility

As of 2023, BIMI is still a relatively new standard in the email world. But it‘s gaining adoption quickly as more businesses see the value in verified email logos.

On the recipient side, BIMI is currently supported by several major consumer and business email providers:

Gmail
Yahoo Mail
AOL Mail
Fastmail
Pobox
Flipkart
Jio

Notably absent from that list are Microsoft Outlook.com/Office 365 and Apple iCloud Mail, which do not yet support BIMI. But they have expressed interest in the standard, so I expect we‘ll see them hop on board in the near future.

It‘s also important to note that email apps handle BIMI logos differently. Your verified logo may appear prominently in Gmail‘s web interface and mobile app, but be hidden behind a special icon in Apple Mail. But the user experience is constantly evolving.

So while BIMI adoption isn‘t universal just yet, it‘s absolutely a worthwhile investment in your business email strategy. Even if a chunk of your recipients don‘t see your verified logo today, they likely will in the coming years as support grows.

Wrapping Up

I know this has been a ton of information to absorb. Here‘s a quick recap of the key points:

A verified email logo increases trust and brand recognition and leads to better email engagement.
The BIMI standard makes verified logos possible by combining email authentication (DMARC), logo validation (VMCs), and a DNS declaration.
To set up BIMI, you need to create a BIMI-compliant SVG logo, trademark the logo, obtain a VMC certificate, upload the files, and add a BIMI DNS record.
Ongoing maintenance is required to keep your verified logo displaying.
Major email providers like Gmail and Yahoo support BIMI today, with adoption growing.

I hope this guide has given you all the knowledge and steps you need to add a slick verified logo next to your company‘s emails. It‘s well worth the effort to stand out (in a good way) in your customers‘ inboxes.

Now go forth and verify those logos!