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What is a RSS feed?

In this article, we'll introduce the concept of RSS feed by explaining the structure and the use of it.

What is a RSS feed?

Instead of visiting sites to find new posts or articles, you can use the RSS feed of a website and be updated every time there's a new publication.

For example, instead of checking Brevo blog every week for updates, you can sign up for our blog RSS feed to be notified whenever we publish an article.

However, you will need a RSS feed reader to do so and your readers will most probably not all use this technical method. This is when Brevo RSS campaigns come in handy!

What is the RSS campaign feature in Brevo?

In Brevo we used the concept of RSS feed to go even further! The idea was still to automatically push the information to your clients, but your audience will only have to subscribe to your blog updates and not to a RSS feed.

Thanks to our RSS campaign feature, you can automatically send the latest updates on your blog to your audience in a nicely designed email.

Understanding the RSS feed structure

We will use some elements from the RSS feed to automatically create email campaigns when you publish a new post. These elements are called RSS tags and will be translated into key names in Brevo.

Here's an example of an RSS feed for Brevo Blog with 2 articles: 

<channel>

   <title> Brevo Blog </title>
   <link> https://www.brevo.com/blog/ </link>
   <description> Brevo Blog Email & Marketing </description> 
   
  <items>

      <item>

         <title> 11 Easy Ways to Decrease Your Email Bounce Rate </title>
         <link> https://www.brevo.com/blog/email-bounce-rate </link>
         <description> Learn how to decrease your email bounce rate </description>
         <publication_date> 10.06.2020 </publication_date>
      </item>

      <item>
         <title> MY SECOND ARTICLE </title>
         <link>https://www.brevo.com/blog/XXXXX </link>
         <description> DESCRIPTION OF MY SECOND ARTICLE </description>
         <publication_date> 12.06.2020 </publication_date>
      </item>

  <items>

</channel>

<channel> = the RSS feed

The first line contains the <channel> element. This element is used to describe the RSS feed itself. So in our case it describes Brevo Blog. Here are the three required elements of your blog:

<title>

Defines the title of the blog.
In our example: Brevo Blog.

<link>

Defines the hyperlink to the blog.
In our example:  https://www.brevo.com/blog/

<description>

Describes the blog.
In our example: Brevo Blog Email & Marketing

<item> = the articles

Each <channel> element can have one or more <item> elements gathered in the <items> section. Each <item> element is an article from your blog. Each articles from your blog will follow this structure:

<title>

Defines the title of the article.
In our example: 11 Easy Ways to Decrease Your Email Bounce Rate

<link>

Defines the hyperlink to the artilce 
In our example: https://www.brevo.com/blog/email-bounce-rate

<description>

Describes the article
In our example: Learn how to decrease your email bounce rate

You will also find information about the publication date or the image for instance.

Using the RSS tags in an email template

These RSS tags will be used in your email campaign, but in another format. It'll be translated into key names that will look like this: 

  • {{ item.TITLE }}
  • {{ item.DESCRIPTION }}
  • {{ item.LINK }}
  • etc.

To understand how the key names work in the template, please check our article Understanding the format of the default template.

⏩ What's next?

🤔 Have a question?

If you have a question, feel free to contact our support team by creating a ticket from your account. If you don't have an account yet, you can contact us here.