How to Send an RSS Email Campaign in Sparkforge

By Sparkforge Support Team ·Last reviewed May 3, 2026

Sparkforge email campaigns can pull RSS feeds into the message body using RSS Header and RSS Item blocks. New posts published between scheduling and send are included automatically.

RSS campaigns in Sparkforge auto-populate emails with content from any feed URL. Drop in an RSS Header or RSS Item element, paste the feed URL, set a schedule, and Sparkforge inserts every new item published between scheduling and send.

How an RSS campaign works

Add an RSS Header or RSS Item element to your email template, paste the feed URL in the Send or Schedule section, and Sparkforge populates the corresponding tags automatically. Customize the layout by choosing which RSS tags to display.

RSS Header custom values

The RSS Header element pulls <channel> tags from the feed:

RSS tag	Custom value
`<title>`	`{{rss_feed.title}}`
`<description>`	`{{rss_feed.description}}`
`<link>`	`{{rss_feed.url}}`
`<lastBuildDate>`	`{{rss_feed.date}}`

RSS Item custom values

RSS tag	Custom value	Description
`<title>`	`{{rss_item.title}}`	Title of the item, usually a blog post title
`<description>`	`{{rss_item.content}}`	Summary in HTML; falls back to `<content:encoded>` if no description tag
`<link>`	`{{rss_item.url}}`	URL to the item online
`<content:encoded>`	`{{rss_item.content_full}}`	Full HTML content; falls back to `<description>` if no encoded tag
`pubDate`	`{{rss_item.date}}`	Publish date in `MMM DD, YYYY hh:mm A` format
`<dc:creator>`	`{{rss_item.author}}`	Author of the item
`<media:content>`	`{{rss_item.imageUrl}}`	Image src URL; render with `{{rss_img alt="alt_text" src=rss_item.imageUrl height="200" width="200"}}`

Wrap repeating item blocks with {{#rss_items rss_items}} and {{/rss_items}}.

How to send an RSS campaign

Find your RSS feed URL. Look for the RSS icon in the site footer or sidebar, view the page source for rss or xml, try common endings like /feed, /rss, or /rss.xml, or use a feed-detector extension.
Enter the URL. Go to Send or Schedule > RSS Campaign and paste the feed URL.
Add RSS content blocks. Insert an RSS Header or RSS Item element in the email builder.
Add custom values. Wire up the tags you want to display.
Configure the schedule. In Send or Schedule > RSS Schedule, set the send time and the maximum number of items per send.
Schedule the campaign. Review and confirm.

Handling HTML content in feeds

Custom values like {{rss_item.title}} are HTML-escaped by default, so an & in the source becomes &. To render raw HTML from the feed, use the triple-stash form: {{{rss_item.content}}}.

Frequently Asked Questions

What posts get included in the next send?

Every item published between the moment you scheduled the campaign and the send time. If you scheduled on March 10 to send on March 25, all posts published after March 10 are included on March 25.

How do I cap the number of posts per send?

In the Send or Schedule section, set the maximum number of feeds. If you set 5, the most recent 5 items are included.

What happens if there are no new posts in the cycle?

No campaign goes out. The audit log records an unsuccessful schedule entry citing no new feeds.

Why is HTML showing up as plain text in the email?

Custom values are HTML-escaped by default. Use the triple-stash form like {{{rss_item.content}}} to render the raw HTML from the feed.

Where is the description pulled from if my feed has no description tag?

Sparkforge falls back to the content:encoded tag. Likewise, if there is no content:encoded tag, the full content custom value falls back to description.