Most BIMI deployments display a single logo for every email sent from a domain. For many organizations, that’s exactly what they want.
However, some organizations send different types of email that represent different brands or business functions. Marketing emails may use one logo, customer support another, while employee emails may not display a BIMI logo at all.
The BIMI lps tag (Local-part as Selector) tag was introduced to support these scenarios without requiring changes to the email itself. While it offers considerable flexibility, it is still a relatively new feature of the BIMI specification. Support currently depends on receiving mailbox providers implementing it, so organizations should verify compatibility before relying on it as part of their branding strategy.
What is the BIMI lps Tag?
The lps tag stands for Local-part as Selector.
The local-part is simply the portion of an email address before the @ symbol.
For example:
| Email Address | Local-part |
| marketing@example.com | marketing |
| support@example.com | support |
| jane.smith@example.com | jane.smith |
Normally, mailbox providers look up a single BIMI record at:
default._bimi.example.comIf that record contains an lps tag, the mailbox provider may perform a second DNS lookup using the sender’s local-part as the BIMI selector.
Why Use lps?
The most obvious use case is displaying different logos for different business functions.
For example:
- Marketing emails display the corporate brand.
- Customer support emails display a support logo.
- Billing emails display an accounting or payments logo.
There is another benefit that is often overlooked.
Some organizations may send both marketing and employee email from their primary domain. Without additional controls, every mailbox on that domain could potentially qualify for the same BIMI logo.
The lps tag allows organizations to restrict BIMI branding to approved, customer-facing addresses such as newsletter@example.com, offers@example.com, or support@example.com, while personal mailboxes like alice@example.com continue to display the recipient’s contact photo, a default avatar, or no logo at all.
This gives organizations much finer control over where their brand appears without requiring separate sending domains.
How Does It Work?
Think of the lps tag as a signpost.
When a mailbox provider performs the normal BIMI lookup, it first checks the default BIMI record.
default._bimi.example.com TXT "v=BIMI1; l=; a=; lps=newsletter,offers,promotions"This record tells the mailbox provider:
- By default, do not display a BIMI logo.
- If the sender’s local-part begins with newsletter, offers, or promotions, perform another BIMI lookup using that local-part as the selector.
For example, if the sender is:
newsletter@example.comthe mailbox provider performs a second DNS lookup:
newsletter._bimi.example.com TXT "v=BIMI1; l=https://example.com/logos/newsletter.svg; a=https://example.com/certs/vmc.pem;"Because this record exists, the newsletter logo is displayed for that message.
If the sender is:
alice@example.comthere is no matching prefix, so no second lookup occurs. The mailbox provider simply uses the default BIMI record, which in this example explicitly publishes no logo.
Why Not Just Use a BIMI-Selector Header?
The BIMI specification already supports the BIMI-Selector email header, allowing senders to choose which BIMI record should apply to a message.
The challenge is that many email platforms cannot easily add or modify custom email headers. Updating DNS is often much simpler than changing outbound mail systems, especially when multiple applications or service providers send mail on behalf of the same domain.
The lps tag moves that logic into DNS, allowing the mailbox provider to determine the appropriate selector automatically based on the sender’s email address.
Things to Know
Before implementing lps, keep these considerations in mind:
- Mailbox providers normalize the local-part before using it as a selector. For example, plus addressing is removed, and periods or underscores are converted into dashes.
- The lps tag can contain one or more comma-separated prefixes, or it can be left empty (lps=) to allow every sender to trigger a selector lookup.
- Each successful match requires an additional DNS lookup.
- Although lps is part of the BIMI specification, mailbox provider support is still emerging. Providers that do not implement lps will simply ignore the tag and evaluate the standard BIMI record instead.
The lps tag gives organizations much finer control over how their Brand Indicators are presented. It can display different logos for different business functions, or it can restrict BIMI to only approved sending addresses on a shared domain, preventing every employee mailbox from inheriting the organization’s marketing logo.
While support is still developing across mailbox providers, lps provides an elegant, DNS-based solution for organizations looking to implement more granular BIMI branding without modifying their outbound email infrastructure. As BIMI adoption continues to grow, it is a feature worth understanding and keeping in mind for future deployments.
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