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Understanding the format of the RSS default template

Using our RSS Campaign integration to send your RSS campaigns allows you to automatically send your latest blog posts, news updates, or other content directly to your subscribers' inboxes. By choosing to use our RSS default template, you can make this process even easier as it provides a pre-designed format that you can customize with your own branding and content.

If you're not familiar with how RSS feeds work and how you can share yours with your readers using our RSS Campaign template and integration, we recommend you check our series of 3 articles:

About the RSS default template

The RSS default template is automatically created when you create an RSS Campaigns integration on your account. It is available from the Templates page under the name RSS Default Template - EN [2020 Editor]. The RSS default template allows you to automatically retrieve your blog posts and add them to an email campaign. This means you don't have to manually create a new campaign whenever you want to update your audience about new content on your website.

How is it possible? The RSS default template contains two elements that allow us to dynamically populate the content of your emails with data from your articles: a pre-configured repeatable block with key names (RSS tags).

How is the RSS default template formatted?

To help you understand how the RSS default template is formatted, we created an RSS campaign from the RSS feed of Brevo Blog that we'll compare to the RSS default template and explain how repeatable blocks and key names are used in the template.

Here's an example of what an RSS campaign looks like once it's been sent and populated with the data from an article:

Articles_of_the_week_preview_steps.png

And here's what the original RSS default template looks like in the Drag & Drop Editor:

repeaat_new.jpg

Key names (RSS tags)

The key names in the default RSS template are placeholders that you can use to retrieve the data of the main elements of your blog posts:

  1. {{ item.ENCLOSURE }} for the image of the article 
  2. {{ item.TITLE }} for the title of the article
  3. {{ item.PUBDATE }} for the publication date of the article
  4. {{ item.DESCRIPTION | safe }} for the description of the article
  5. {{ item.LINK }} for the URL of the article

Repeatable content

The Repeatable content option allows you to repeat a section in your email and iterate over all content within a single variable. With this option, you can design and format email templates and campaigns that contain variables for a list of items (in our case, the blog articles) that will be replaced dynamically at the time the email is sent.

You don't have to duplicate the section if you want several articles to be displayed. When you enable the Repeatable content option for a section, it will repeat the pattern for as many articles as you'd like. You just need to modify the limit directly from the Repeatable content option.

To learn more about the Repeatable content option, check our dedicated article Repeat a block of items in your emails.

How to customize the RSS default template?

❗️ Important
If you're not familiar with RSS feeds and key names, we recommend you customize the design of your RSS default template without modifying the key names.

Customize the design of your email template

Before using the RSS default template in your RSS Campaigns integration, you should customize it with your own branding by adding your logo, colors, fonts, etc., using our Drag & Drop Editor.

💡 Good to know
You can also use our Brand Library feature to automatically apply your brand's assets to your RSS template.

[Advanced] Customize the key names in your email template

❗️ Important
Use item key names in a repeatable block only. If used outside of a repeatable block, we won't be able to retrieve the data from your blog posts.

Key names are placeholders that you can use in your email template to retrieve data about your website and blog posts. They are created based on the name of the tags in your RSS feed.

In the email body, a key name is used within spaces and double curly braces. It is made of two parts:

  • The first part is either "feed" or "item":
    • Use "feed" for RSS tags used inside the <channel> tag, e.g. {{ feed.PUBDATE }}.
    • Use "item" for RSS tags used inside the <item> tag, e.g. {{ item.TITLE }}.
  • The second part is the name of your RSS tag.

For example, to retrieve the data inside the <title> RSS tag used inside the <item> tag, we use the {{ item.TITLE }} placeholder.

💡 Good to know
If there is a colon ":" in the name of your RSS tag, such as in <content:encoded>, replace it with an underscore "_" in the key name, e.g. {{ item.CONTENT_ENCODED }}.

Advanced configuration for key names

  • To prevent any unwanted HTML tags from showing up in your email, you need to add the "safe" filter to your key name in the following way: {{ item.DESCRIPTION | safe }}. To learn more about filters, check our dedicated article Modify the formatting of your placeholders with filters.
  • Do not use any location timezone filter, such as time_in_location, with the {{ item.PUBDATE }} key name. To learn more about filters, check our dedicated article Modify the formatting of your placeholders with filters.
  • Usually, images are included inside the <content:encoded> RSS tag. If your images are not showing with the {{ item.DESCRIPTION | safe }} key name, you can change it to {{ item.CONTENT_ENCODED }}.

⏩ 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.

If you’re looking for help with a project using Brevo, we can match you with the right certified Brevo expert partner.

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