How to Set Up an RSS Campaign

Marketers often struggle to keep their audience updated with fresh content—especially when new blog posts, updates, or announcements go live every week. It’s easy to fall into the trap of skipping these updates altogether or sending inconsistent updates.

But what if there was a repeatable way to send out your latest content without waiting for an integration or automation plugin?

Let’s see how you can set it up for yourself.

What is an RSS campaign?

An RSS campaign is a type of email campaign that pulls content from an RSS feed (like your blog or news site) and sends it automatically to your subscribers. It’s commonly used to share:

• Weekly blog digests

• Podcast episode roundups

• Product or changelog updates

• News alerts or content hubs

RSS campaigns save time because they eliminate the need to manually build and send a new email every time something is published.

How to set up an RSS campaign

Here are the key steps to get your RSS campaign up and running:

1. Prepare Your RSS Feed

Before creating an RSS campaign, make sure you have a working RSS feed that updates automatically whenever new content is published. Most content management systems generate this feed by default. For example, WordPress sites usually use https://yourdomain.com/feed/, while Blogger sites use https://yourblog.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss.

If you are using another CMS, check the platform documentation or look for an option labeled “RSS” or “Feed” in your settings. When in doubt, try adding /feed or /rss to your homepage URL and see if a feed loads.

Once you have the RSS feed URL, it is important to verify that it works correctly. Start by pasting the URL into your browser and confirming that the feed loads without errors. You can also use a feed validation tool such as https://validator.w3.org/feed/ to check for formatting issues or warnings.

2. Choose an email marketing platform

Next, choose an email marketing platform that supports RSS-based campaigns. For this setup, we will use Mailmodo, which allows you to automatically send emails whenever new items appear in your RSS feed.

While the exact setup steps and naming may vary across tools, Mailmodo provides built-in support for RSS campaigns through its News Feed widget and automated campaign workflows.

3. Design your email template

In Mailmodo, start by opening the template editor, where you can choose to edit a pre-built template or create one from scratch. Then follow these steps to set up your RSS feed within the email:

1. From the widgets tab, drag and drop the News Feed widget into your template.

2. Provide the API endpoint or RSS feed URL to pull content dynamically.

3. Choose the number of items to display, select list or layout options, and configure the button styles.

4. Add images, text, CTAs, and any other elements to complete your email design.

4. Create a new RSS campaign

Once your email template is ready, the next step is to set up the RSS campaign in Mailmodo. Start by navigating to Campaigns and clicking Create Campaign. Then decide the trigger for sending the RSS email.

For example, the trigger can be “When new content is available in the RSS feed,” so that every time a new post is published, the journey starts automatically for your subscribers.

Nextdrag and drop the template into the workflow, and link it to the RSS feed URL or API endpoint you prepared earlier. Mailmodo will then automatically pull the latest content from the feed and populate the template dynamically, sending it to the selected subscriber segment.

5. Test your campaign and activate

Before activating the campaign, send a test email to yourself to ensure everything works correctly. Check that post titles and links display properly, formatting looks good on both desktop and mobile, and images render as expected.

Once verfied, make it live. Mailmodo system will now automatically monitor your RSS feed and send emails to your subscribers whenever new content is published.

6. Monitor and optimize

Ongoing monitoring is essential to maintain and improve performance. Track key metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, and unsubscribes to see how your audience is interacting with your emails. Based on these insights, adjust elements like sending frequency, subject lines, or email design to boost engagement

Conclusion

Whether you're sending blog updates, product news, or content roundups, staying consistent with your email campaigns is what drives long-term engagement. Even without native automation, you can still deliver valuable, timely content using the tools you already have. With a simple process and a bit of planning, Mailmodo makes it easy to keep your audience informed—week after week.