BIMI builds on DMARC. A provider only shows your logo when the message passes DMARC and your domain's policy is at enforcement: p=quarantine or p=reject. The logo must be a square SVG in the SVG Tiny Portable/Secure profile, hosted over HTTPS.
default._bimi.example.com TXT "v=BIMI1; l=https://example.com/brand/logo.svg; a=https://example.com/brand/vmc.pem"
What you need before it works
- SPF and DKIM passing and aligned, so DMARC passes for your real mail.
- A DMARC policy of quarantine or reject on the domain.
- The logo in the right SVG profile, and for Gmail and Apple Mail a Verified Mark Certificate (VMC) or Common Mark Certificate (CMC) from a certificate authority.
Is BIMI worth it for cold email?
Usually not first. BIMI does not move mail from spam to the inbox on its own; it is a trust signal once you are already landing. For cold outreach, most teams send from separate domains, and a certificate for each one costs money and time. Put your effort into SPF, DKIM, DMARC and email warmup first, and consider BIMI for your main brand domain, where newsletters and customer email go out.
Support varies by provider. Gmail, Apple Mail and Yahoo show BIMI logos, each with its own rules about certificates, and other mailbox providers ignore the record. A logo that does not show usually means DMARC is not at enforcement, the SVG is in the wrong profile, or the certificate is missing or does not match the domain.
Before you add BIMI, run the domain email checker to confirm SPF, DKIM and DMARC pass, and use the DMARC record generator to plan the move from p=none to enforcement.