Every now and then email marketers look for opportunities to increase their email marketing KPIs and sooner or later some of them will come across BIMI or Trusted Dialog. But what is useful for which target markets? In this article I will provide you with a brief overview of both methods.

Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI)

BIMI displays a logo of your brand in the recipient’s inbox which helps email users to recognise your brand. Currently, BIMI is supported by the following ISPs: 

Verizon Media Group: Yahoo, AOL, Netscape
Gmail: Gmail, Google Workspaces
Fastmail: Fastmail, Pobox
Apple (Apple Mail in macOS Ventura 13, iOS 16, iPadOS 16 and later versions): icloud.com, me.com
LaPoste: laposte.fr

More mailbox providers are considering supporting BIMI so the above list of ISPs may expand in the upcoming months or years. Today, mostly mailbox providers from the US support BIMI but among the ISPs which consider supporting BIMI are also European ones. For more information, please have a look at the official BIMI website.

If you would like to set up BIMI for your Emarsys account, please follow our detailed step-by-step guide.

Trusted Dialog

Trusted Dialog offers pretty much the same result as BIMI – it displays a logo of your brand in the user’s inbox. Unlike BIMI, however, only ISPs in the German-speaking region support Trusted Dialog and thus show your logo. These mailbox providers support Trusted Dialog: 

Web.de
GMX
T-Online
Freenet
1&1 

Plans to have more ISPs cooperating with and supporting Trusted Dialog, also outside the German-speaking countries are not known. Furthermore, Trusted Dialog is a paid service so you should carefully analyse if it’s worth investing money to use this service or if you could reach a comparable result with other measures. 

The answer to the question ‘Should I use BIMI or Trusted Dialog or both?’ is highly depending on the ISPs that your recipients use and what are your target markets. It is therefore important to have a look at your data first and make a wise decision after being clear about questions, such as: 

For which ISPs is the performance uplift desired?
Which ISPs perform well and perhaps don’t need further supporting measures?
Is there an acceptable return of investment (ROI) to be expected? 

No matter if you choose BIMI or Trusted Dialog, or both or none of them, it is still vital to apply proper email marketing practices. The above methods can increase your email marketing KPIs but they cannot make up for improper data acquisition processes or maintaining a low-quality email marketing list. Following the latest email marketing best practices always builds the foundation for the success of your email marketing. Services like BIMI or Trusted Dialog should therefore be seen as the cherry on top. But sometimes a cake is also complete and delicious without this ‘cherry’…

What’s next?

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You can ask questions and provide suggestions for helpful email deliverability topics in the Q&A area Q&A – SAP Emarsys Email Deliverability.

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