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How to Connect Your RSS Feed to ConvertKit
How to Connect Your RSS Feed to ConvertKit

Automatically send a broadcast when you publish a new blog post!

Updated over a week ago

Update readers about new posts automatically!

Connecting your blog's RSS feed to ConvertKit will create new Broadcasts for new posts on your blog, making it convenient for you to update subscribers about every new post of yours.

You also have the option of setting up a weekly Broadcast digest containing your most recent posts, with links back to your blog, instead of sending out an email for each and every post.

Here's how to connect your RSS feed to ConvertKit.

1. Add a new RSS feed connection

In ConvertKit, click the Automate tab in the top navigation, followed by RSS.

Click the + Add feed button to connect a new RSS feed to your account.

2. Configure your RSS feed connection

After adding a new RSS feed connection, you'll be brought to its Configure page. Let's look at each option on it.

Name your RSS feed connection

Your RSS feed connection will be named "RSS Feed" by default. Click the pencil icon next to this name to change it.

Provide your blog feed URL

Fill out your blog feed URL in the Feed URL field in this format: https://yourblogdomain.com/feed

If you get an error message, check that:

  • You've included "https" or "http" in the blog feed URL

  • You've used the correct blog feed URL

Your blog feed URL is not the same as your blog URL. Typically, it'll be your blog URL followed by /feed or /rss. For example, https://nathanbarry.com/feed.

If you visit your blog feed URL in your browser address bar and it just looks like a page of code, you probably have it right!

NOTE: Your RSS feed is generated by your blog. If you don't see your RSS feed code when visiting your blog URL followed by /feed or /rss, please check with your website service to find the correct RSS feed link it uses and/or change the format of your feed.

Set up single emails or digests

Selecting the Single option will draft a new email to your subscribers every time a new blog post is published.

For example, if you post two blog posts per week, then two emails (one for each post) will be drafted per week.

Your emails will be drafted when your posts themselves go live (though they may take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours to appear in your ConvertKit account).

On the other hand, selecting the Digest option will compile multiple new blog posts into a single email. You'll also need to select the days and time on which your email will be drafted:

For example, if you publish three blog posts per week, you can set up the RSS feed connection to draft an email that includes all three posts every Friday.

When one of the days you've selected for your email digests rolls around, a new email will be drafted containing all new blog posts since the drafting of the last one.

(If there have been no new posts since then, a new email will not be drafted.)

Select whether to send emails automatically

All RSS emails are generated as draft Broadcasts. If you enable the Send automatically option, they will be automatically sent 30 minutes after being drafted:

Disabling the Send automatically option will keep your RSS emails as draft Broadcasts indefinitely. You will then have to go into your account to manually send them.

Whether you're sending your RSS emails automatically or manually, you'll be able to edit their drafts before they're sent.

Set up your emails' sending address

Click the From address dropdown menu to choose your preferred sending address for your RSS emails.

Select your RSS email recipients

Use the filters in the Who would you like to send this to? section to select your RSS email recipients. This is the same process as filtering recipients for a regular Broadcast.

Click the Continue button to proceed to the Template page.

3. Customize your RSS email template

On the Template page, you'll customize the email that subscribers will receive! ✨

Fill out your subject line

Here, you can dynamically customize your subject line with the {{title}} Liquid tag:

  • If you're sending a single email, the {{title}} Liquid tag will be replaced with your blog post title.

  • If you're sending an email digest, this tag will be replaced with your RSS feed's title.

Select your email template

Click Browse templates under the right sidebar's Email tab to change your email template.

⚠️ IMPORTANT! If you change your email template, you'll need to add the Post content block to it if it isn't already there. Here's how it looks by default:

The Post content block is where the content of your blog post(s) will go. You won't be able to enable your RSS feed connection if this content block is missing from your email.

To add the Post content block to your email template, click the part of your email where you want it to go.

Click the + icon on the left to load the content block menu, then select the Post option.

Customize your email content

Next, use the RSS email editor to customize your email template with text, images, layouts, buttons, and more. Your email template customizations will be saved automatically.

The email editor here is similar to that for our regular email editor for drafting Broadcasts and Sequences. But it has a few extra features catering to RSS feeds!

Insert Liquid tags

In particular, you can use RSS-specific Liquid tags in the Post content block. These tags will automatically be replaced by their corresponding content from your blog posts.

You can find a list of available Liquid tags by clicking the Post content block, followed by the Post Template tab in the right sidebar.

Here's what each Liquid tag corresponds to:

Liquid tag

RSS feeds

Atom feeds

{{ post.title }}

title

title

{{ post.author }}

name

author

{{ post.date }}

pubDate, issued

published, issued, created

{{ post.categories }}

list of category elements

list of category elements

{{ post.url }}

link

link or first of links

{{ post.summary }}

description

summary

{{ post.content }}

content: encoded

content

{{ post.summary_or_content }}

post.summary or post.content, whichever is present, summary first

post.summary or post.content, whichever is present, summary first

{{ post.content_or_summary }}

post.content or post.summary, whichever is present, content first

post.content or post.summary, whichever is present, content first

Add default email content

Above and below your Post content block, you can add whatever content you'd like to have appear at the start and end of every RSS feed email, such as a greeting or sign-off.

Set up conditional blog post content

You can also use the {% categorymatch %} Liquid tag to display only blog post content whose categories match the names of ConvertKit Tags your subscribers have. This is great for customizing your RSS email content according to your subscribers' interests.

To do so, you will need to add the {% categorymatch %} Liquid tag (and its corresponding {% endcategorymatch %} Liquid tag) to the Post content block like this:

Adding these tags will automatically add Liquid tags to your Broadcasts that show conditional content to your subscribers based on the ConvertKit Tags they have. Check this out in action by previewing your email:

In this example, we're pulling blog posts from Nathan Barry's blog—and, specifically, this one. When you view the blog post, you'll see that its post category is "Podcast."

Accordingly, the RSS email will display this blog post content to only subscribers who have been tagged with "Podcast." Subscribers who don't have the "Podcast" tag won't see it.

NOTE: If a blog post belongs in multiple categories, the email will display its content to subscribers whose Tags match at least one of these categories.

For example, if a blog post is in the "Podcast" and "Creator Flywheels" categories, the RSS email will display its content to subscribers tagged with "Podcast," "Creator Flywheels," or both.

One last thing!

If you're using the {% categorymatch %} Liquid tag, it's also a good idea to set a default category of blog posts that the RSS email should display even if none of your posts' category names match that for your subscribers' Tags.

After all, you don't want your RSS emails to appear blank!

Use this tag to set a default category:

{% categorymatch default: yourdefaultcategorygoeshere %}

Like so:

In this case, your RSS emails will display content from new blog posts in the default "Podcast" category to your subscribers. This is even if they haven't been tagged with "Podcast."

Preview your email

At any point, click the Preview button under the right sidebar's Email tab to preview how your RSS email template looks so far.

Click the Continue button to proceed to the Status page when you're happy with your email.

4. Enable your RSS feed connection

Finally, you can enable your RSS feed connection and view its history on the Status page.

Enable your RSS feed connection

On the Status page, you'll be able to view a summary of the RSS feed you've connected, whether you're creating single RSS emails or digests, and whether you've set up your RSS emails to send automatically.

If everything looks good, toggle the Enable automation setting on to start automatically creating RSS emails for new blog posts!

View your RSS feed connection history

At the bottom of the Status page, you can also view your RSS feed connection history, such as:

  • The date you created the connection

  • The dates you enabled/disabled the connection

  • The dates on which RSS email drafts were generated

5. Editing your RSS email drafts

Before your RSS emails are sent (whether automatically or manually), you can find their drafts by going to the Send tab in the top navigation, followed by Broadcasts.

You can then use the Broadcast editor to edit them.

NOTE: If you don't see your RSS email draft on the Broadcasts page, check your RSS feed connection history to confirm the draft has been generated. It may also take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours after publishing your blog post for the draft to be generated.

The Liquid tags you've added to your RSS email template will have been replaced with your actual blog post content in the email draft.

In particular, your {{ post.content }}, {{ post.summary }}, {{ post.summary_or_content }}, and {{ post.content_or_summary }} content will have been added as HTML blocks. This helps to preserve any HTML formatting you've applied to it in your blog post.

6. Deleting your RSS feed connection

To delete your RSS feed connection, click the three vertical dots at the top right of its Configure, Template, or Status page, followed by Delete.

You can also delete your RSS feed connection from the RSS page. Click the three horizontal dots next to your feed connection, followed by Delete.

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