RSS to email is a great feature for publishers of regular news content as well as product updates, special offers and blog posts because you only need to update your content in one place, the feed!
RSS to email will allow you to pull news stories, blogs and other information from pre-determined web page and automatically send this out to your email recipients.
Setting up an RSS Feed
To use the RSS to email function, you will first need to create the RSS Feed you wish to use. To do this head over to the content area and select RSS Feeds.
Once in the RSS Feeds area, click the new feed button to create a new RSS Feed.
Name the overall feed (something relevant is recommended), before entering the URL that you wish to pull the information through from.
The next stage is to outline the RSS Feed settings.
Define the format you wish the date to appear, the number of Feed items to be included within each email and the number of characters to display before a prompt to Read More is added.
In the additional settings area, you have the option to limit how much content is shown before the Read More link by stopping it at the nearest space character, the alternative is to cut a story after the exact number of characters outlined above.
You can also choose to strip all previous HTML coding from the Feed. This will allow you to add your own formatting to the text within your email, rather than using the code set out on your website.
Once the settings have been chosen, proceed to save the Feed. You should now see it saved in the RSS Feed area.
Inserting an RSS Feed into your email
Once you have an RSS Feed set up, create your message template as usual via the content and create a new email section.
When you reach the Visual Editor, click the Personalisation, Dynamic Content & RSS Feeds button.
You will then need to click the button edit dynamic regions on the far right of the drop down panel.
This will take you to the dynamic regions area. Proceed to choose the option that will allow you to create a new RSS Feed Region.
Give the dynamic RSS feed region a name (Ensure there are no spaces in the region name). Continue to select the RSS feed you wish to feature in this particular campaign.
Once this has been selected, you will see some additional options that will allow you to pull in further information from the existing feed on your website.
Without making any amendments, we will provide the layout to automatically include:
RSS Feed Name + Link
RSS Story Header + Link
RSS Item Date
RSS Story
This can be fully amended if need be, to allow you total control of how the feed will be formatted within a recipient’s inbox.
Different code can be applied to each section of the RSS feed, this will allow to you room to amend areas such as: the font style, font size, adding additional information to accompany the feed, inserting breaks between stories and so on.
When the formatting has been completed, please save the dynamic RSS region using the button at the bottom right of the page.
You will then be returned to the dynamic regions area of your account.
You will need to highlight the tag name ready to copy into your message. The tag can also be found in the drop down menu, select a personalisation field after pressing the personalisation, dynamic content & RSS Feeds button.
Once this has been selected, use the back to editor button to return to the visual editor screen.
Proceed to paste the tag name into a suitable area within your template.
If you now select the preview message option, you will find that any current information has been pulled through from your website. Please be aware, this preview will update in real timefrom the URL you are pulling information through. For example, if the send is delayed and the URL has been updated, your recipients will see the latest information published.
Once you have carried out the necessary testing, the campaign is now ready to send as usual.