^{Best Practices}

Gmail’s Blue Verified Checkmark: A New BIMI Incentive

_{Denis O'Sullivan

May 18, 2023 • 2 min read}

A couple of years ago, Gmail announced support for Brand Indicators for Message Indicators (BIMI)—forever changing the game. Implementing BIMI can be a challenge for some senders, but if you want your emails to stand out in the inbox, consider adopting BIMI.

BIMI has always provided 3 major benefits for senders:

Increases brand impressions with your logo in the inbox
Controls how your brand logo displays globally
Increases engagement due to your emails standing out in the inbox

On top of that, Gmail’s latest announcement provides a further incentive for brands to adopt BIMI—a blue checkmark. Let’s look at what this new checkmark is and how you can get one.

A new incentive to adopt BIMI

What is the blue checkmark?

For senders that have adopted BIMI, a blue checkmark will now appear next to the brand’s logo. In the blog post to announce this update, Google says, “This will help users identify messages from legitimate senders versus impersonators.”

In an environment where subscribers second-guess whether the mail they receive is legitimate or not, this blue checkmark will help ensure that Google has verified the brands. When a subscriber hovers over the blue checkmark, they’ll see a brief statement confirming the sender’s verification and ownership of the domain and logo that appear in the inbox.

So how do you get one?

How do we get the blue checkmark?

If you already have BIMI set up, the blue checkmark should automatically begin to appear moving forward. But if you haven’t yet adopted BIMI, you’ll need to follow these steps:

Set up your SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records.
Ensure your DMARC policy is at enforcement (quarantine or reject).
Publish a BIMI record in the DNS of your domain.
Create a square scalable vector graphics (SVG) image, store it in HTTPS, and enter the URL in your DNS TXT record.
Obtain a Verified Mark Certificate (VMC) certifying that you are legally authorized to use your logo.