Create an RSS Campaign

Before You Start

• You'll need the URL for your RSS feed. If you want to include content from multiple feeds, you can use our FEED merge tag to add multiple RSS feeds to one campaign. Or, use a feed aggregator like RSS Mix to combine multiple RSS feeds into a single feed.
• You can't control the RSS content via the Campaign Builder. If you want your content formatted a certain way, edit the RSS source directly.

About RSS Sends

When you first set up an RSS Campaign we show the last post that was added to your feed as an example as you build your campaign. We don't send campaigns to your list unless there's something new to send. For example, if you set your campaign to send weekly but haven't posted in more than a week, we won't send to your list until there is a new post on the day your campaign is set to send.

If this is the first time you send your RSS Campaign, we'll only send posts from the last 24 hours for daily, from the last seven days for weekly, and the past 30 days for monthly.

Create an RSS Campaign

RSS Campaigns are built in a series of steps. If you haven’t started building your RSS Campaign yet, start at the beginning of these instructions. If you already started and saved your progress, skip to the step you want to work on.

To create a new RSS Campaign, follow these steps.

1. Navigate to the Campaigns page.
2. Click the Create Campaign drop-down menu, and choose RSS campaign.
   

RSS Feed Step

You'll choose the RSS feed you want to use and other settings on the RSS Feed step.

1. Type your feed's URL in the RSS Feed URL field.
2. Choose your send time and other options.
   

• When should we send?
  Choose from Every day, Every week, or Every month. Use the drop-down menus and checkboxes to choose the day(s) and time you want your RSS Campaign to send.

• Resize RSS feed images to fit template
  Check this box if you want MailChimp to resize the images in your feed to fit your template. This will help prevent your campaign from stretching. Currently, this option won't work when the campaign is viewed in Outlook, and videos can't be resized.

Recipients Step

Choose the list or segment you want to send your campaign to. To send to a segment, configure a new segment on this screen, or choose a saved segment.

Setup Step

The Setup step is where you'll type in campaign details, like your Email subject and From name, that your subscribers will see when each email in the RSS Campaign is sent.

1. Type in your campaign details in the fields provided.
2. Check the boxes next to any additional settings or tracking options that you want to include.

Template Step

The Template step is where you'll choose the layout you want to use. You can create an RSS Campaign from any of the available templates, but we offer a few options designed specifically for RSS. If you need to, you can switch templates later.

Design Step

The Design step is where you'll design your campaign.

Use RSS content blocks pre-loaded with our RSS merge tags to customize the content that's pulled into your campaign.

RSS merge tags pull information from your feed into your campaigns and tell our system what to look for when checking your feed. If these tags are missing, your emails will deliver without content.

Confirm Step

The Confirm step is where you'll review your campaign.

1. Review the Pre-Delivery Checklist, and preview and test your campaign if you haven't already. Click Resolve or Edit to make changes to any section of the workflow.
2. When you're finished reviewing, click Start RSS to send your RSS Campaign based on the schedule you chose, or click the drop-down arrow and choose Send Now and start RSS campaign to immediately send a campaign and start the schedule.
   

View RSS Campaign Reports

RSS Campaigns function differently than other types of MailChimp campaigns. When you create an RSS Campaign, we generate the parent copy of the campaign that is referenced for each individual send. When the RSS Campaign sends to your list at its scheduled time, each sent copy is referred to as a child of the parent campaign.

We generate a campaign report for each child RSS Campaign. To see an overview of the child campaign reports for a parent RSS Campaign, follow these steps.

1. Navigate to the Campaigns page.

2. Click the Filter drop-down menu.

3. In the Status menu, choose Sent, and in the Type menu, choose RSS campaign. 
   

4. Click Apply.

5. Click the parent RSS Campaign to view the child campaigns.

6. The Sent Campaigns tab displays all the sent child campaigns for that RSS Campaign.
   
7. Click View Report to view the report for a child campaign.