RSS feeds are the most common way to get information from websites, especially articles. Integrating RSS feeds allows you to list new articles in your newsletters. As part of the automations, new articles can be sent out regularly on selected days.
What you can find in the help:
What is an RSS feed, and what formats can be used?
An RSS feed is a structured XML file that allows you to publish data from your articles on other platforms conveniently. To use an RSS feed correctly, it must conform to the XML 1.0 specification. The XML file is generated from the backend of your site, so we recommend contacting your webmaster.
How to modify the structure of the XML file for embedding in Ecomail:
<item>
<title></title> - title of the article
<link></link> - link to the article
<description></description> - perex - can be used to retrieve the article image if it is included in <
Save the RSS feed and wait for it to sync. For larger files, this may take a few minutes.
Creating automation with RSS feed
In the "Automation" section, create a new automation. Name it and select a list of contacts to which the automation will send articles. Set the automation frequency to "Run multiple times".
Insert the "RSS feed" trigger into the newly created automation:
The trigger for RSS feed allows you to select one of the uploaded feeds, the time from which the automation will run periodically, the frequency (on which days the automation will repeat) and you can also select an already created segment of contacts, or you can specify a condition on which contacts the automation should run.
⚠️ ATTENTION: The automation will be triggered only when a new article is published. If no new article is published, the automation will NOT run.
This is how the automation is set up to send RSS feeds.
RSS feeds in the template
a) the "Article" block in the template editor
Articles can be added to the newsletter using blocks in the template.
ATTENTION: The "Article" block can be used in classic campaigns, as well as automations!
Drag and drop the block into the editor. Its default settings will be displayed:
Click on the block and select the feed from which you want to get the article in the left menu:
Once the article is loaded, you can make any edits to the individual parts in the left menu (headline, perex, button,...) - the edits will then be transferred to the other blocks:
Individual parts of the block can be hidden in the editor:
Use this function if you want to show only some blocks or do not have all the parameters in the feed.
b) RSS feeds using merge tags (only available in the automation)
RSS feeds can be inserted into the template using merge tags.
Merge tags to extract data from the RSS feed:
*|ECM_LATEST_ARTICLE[1].title|* - Article title
*||ECM_LATEST_ARTICLE[1].comments|* - Comments on the article
*|ECM_LATEST_ARTICLE[1].description|* - Article description
*|ECM_LATEST_ARTICLE[1].url|* - Link to article
*|ECM_LATEST_ARTICLE[1].imgurl|* - Image URL
*|ECM_LATEST_ARTICLE[1].category|* - Article category
*|ECM_LATEST_ARTICLE[1].creator|* - Article author
You can list up to 5 articles in automation.
❗ If you work with HTML in the article description, use the three-star notation ***|ECM_LATEST_ARTICLE[1].description|***
Write the article using merge tags in the template:
To insert an image from a merge tag into a template, use the following tag to insert it into the source code of a text block (< >), or through an HTML block:
<img src="*|ECM_LATEST_ARTICLE[1].imgurl|*" alt="*|ECM_LATEST_ARTICLE[1].title|*">
Example of a sent RSS feed in an email inbox:
Merge tags can also be given in conditional form, see for example:
The RSS feed is updated each time the automated feed is run, so articles should be available at all times.