The Emails Your ESP Can't Automate: Where Built-In RSS-to-Email Stops

Some ESPs can email a blog feed. Building an email from the rest of what a company publishes (spreadsheets, APIs, CMS entries, podcasts, release notes, or several sources in one designed send) usually still means doing it by hand. Feedotter is a content-to-email automation platform that automates those emails and sends them through the ESP you already use, such as Marketo, HubSpot, Pardot or Mailchimp, with no migration. Your lists, segmentation and reporting stay in your ESP.

Built-in RSS-to-email is a good start. It covers the simplest case: one blog, one schedule, one layout. This guide covers what it does well, where it stops, and which emails it was never built to handle.

What is RSS-to-email?

RSS-to-email is an automation that watches an RSS feed, usually a blog, and emails new items to a list. It runs on a schedule, such as daily or weekly, or when a new item appears. Each send pulls in whatever was published since the last one and drops it into a template.

It is the simplest form of content-to-email automation, and for one blog with one audience it works well. Content-to-email automation is the broader category: software that turns the content and data a company already publishes into formatted emails and sends them automatically, or as ready-to-review drafts, through the email platform the company already uses. RSS is one input among many. See What Is Content-to-Email Automation? for the full definition.

Which ESPs have built-in RSS-to-email?

Of the platforms Feedotter connects to, HubSpot, Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign, Kit and Campaign Monitor include an RSS feature. Marketo, Pardot, Eloqua, Salesforce Marketing Cloud and Iterable don't.

Platforms with built-in RSS-to-email

• HubSpot: blog and RSS emails. Feedotter adds multiple feeds, CMS and API sources, and fully designed digests.
• Mailchimp: RSS campaigns on a daily, weekly or monthly schedule. Feedotter adds multiple segments, interest-group personalization and non-RSS sources.
• ActiveCampaign: an RSS block and RSS-triggered campaigns. Feedotter adds multiple feeds, outside data and newsletter-style layouts.
• Kit: RSS automation for single posts or digests. Feedotter adds multiple feeds, outside data and designed digests.
• Campaign Monitor: RSS-to-email campaigns. Feedotter adds multiple feeds, outside data and designed digests.

Platforms without built-in RSS-to-email

Marketo, Pardot / Account Engagement, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Eloqua and Iterable have no native RSS-to-email. On each of them, Feedotter adds RSS emails, digests and newsletters from any feed or source.

If you're on one of the enterprise platforms, recurring content emails are usually built by hand. If you're on one with built-in RSS, the question is how far that feature stretches.

Where does built-in RSS-to-email stop?

Built-in RSS is usually a secondary feature of the ESP, so it handles the common case well and not much beyond it. These are the limits teams run into first.

• Images. When a post has no explicit image, or uses a format email clients can't show, the image arrives broken or missing. Feedotter finds the best image for each item, resizes and crops it to the template, converts WebP and AVIF to email-safe formats, and falls back to a default you choose.
• Layout. Built-in features typically produce a plain list: headline, maybe a thumbnail, one column. Feedotter fills your own HTML template, so a digest can have a featured story, a grid and short links in one email.
• More than one feed. Combining a blog, a podcast and a YouTube channel usually means extra setup or a separate campaign for each. Feedotter merges any number of feeds into one send and removes duplicates.
• Filtering. Built-in features offer little or no filtering, so teams often end up creating a separate feed for each audience. Feedotter filters by category, author, date range or keyword, so one feed can serve several audiences.
• Routing to segments. One feed usually goes to one list. Feedotter can route each new post to the lists, segments or interest groups that match its category, and still send each person a single email.
• Reporting. ESP reports focus on each email as a whole. Feedotter adds UTM tags and article-level click tracking across sends, so you can see which topics and feeds perform over time.
• Visibility. Built-in RSS campaigns are easy to forget about until something breaks. Feedotter gives every campaign a dashboard with pause and resume, send history, an audit log and a screenshot of every send.

None of this needs a new ESP. Feedotter adds these features on top of the platform you already use. See Enterprise RSS email for the full feature list.

What emails can't your ESP automate at all?

RSS is only one source. Most of what a company publishes never appears in a feed, and most ESPs have no native way to merge outside data, APIs or spreadsheets into an automated email. These are the emails that get built by hand, or don't get sent:

• Data-driven emails. Market updates, fund performance, research summaries or job listings built from Google Sheets, Airtable, a database, JSON or an API.
• CMS-driven emails. Newsletters assembled directly from WordPress, Contentful, Arc XP, Brightspot or another CMS, using fields a feed doesn't carry.
• Release notes and product updates. New entries from a changelog or product blog, packaged into a customer email when they ship.
• Alerts. Security advisories or breaking news sent the moment they're published, routed to the right segments.
• Video and podcast emails. New YouTube videos or podcast episodes, with artwork pulled and resized for email.
• Multi-source emails. One send that combines several sources, such as market data, written commentary and a podcast episode, which ESP features aren't built to assemble.

The trigger is what sets these apart. Most ESP automation is triggered by subscriber behavior: a sign-up, a click, a purchase. These emails are triggered by new content: a published post, an updated row, a new entry. That is the job content-to-email automation does, and it's why it sits alongside the ESP rather than inside it. See Content automation for every supported source.

Feedotter vs Mailchimp RSS-to-email: what's the difference?

Mailchimp's RSS automation covers the basics well. It checks your feed, pulls every post published since the last send, and emails them on a daily, weekly or monthly schedule. You lay out the email with RSS merge tags, and you can add more than one feed with feed merge tags or by combining feeds through an aggregator first.

Feedotter doesn't replace that feature. It works with Mailchimp and sends through your Mailchimp account, and it covers the cases the built-in feature wasn't designed for.

• Sources. Mailchimp RSS automation uses RSS feeds. Feedotter uses RSS and JSON feeds, CMSs, spreadsheets, databases and APIs.
• Multiple feeds. In Mailchimp, possible with feed merge tags or an aggregator. In Feedotter, any number of feeds merged into one send, with duplicates removed.
• Layout. Mailchimp uses its template with RSS merge tags. Feedotter uses your own HTML template, in any row and column layout.
• Images. Mailchimp offers optional resizing for some merge tags. Feedotter handles image discovery, resizing, format conversion and fallback for every item.
• Audience. Mailchimp sends each campaign to one audience. Feedotter routes posts to segments and interest groups by category.
• Review. Mailchimp sends automatically. Feedotter sends automatically, or creates drafts for editors to approve.
• Reporting. Mailchimp gives campaign reports. With Feedotter you keep Mailchimp's reports and add per-article click tracking.
• Sending and lists. Both stay in Mailchimp.

If you send one blog digest to one audience, Mailchimp's feature may be all you need. If you're merging sources, personalizing by interest or sending more than a handful of content emails, that's where Feedotter fits. See Feedotter for Mailchimp.

When is built-in RSS-to-email enough?

Built-in RSS is enough when all of these are true:

• You send from one blog feed to one audience.
• A simple list layout is fine for the brand.
• Images in the feed are reliable.
• You don't need per-article reporting or editorial review.

You've outgrown it when any of these are true:

• Content lives in more than one place: a CMS, a podcast, a spreadsheet, an API.
• Different audiences should get different posts.
• The email has to match a designed template.
• Your ESP has no RSS feature at all, which is the case for Marketo, Pardot, Eloqua, Salesforce Marketing Cloud and Iterable.
• Someone on the team rebuilds the same email by hand every week.

That last one is the clearest sign. Publishers hit it first. The Channel Company was building more than 200 newsletters a month in Marketo, about two hours each. With Feedotter, each one takes seven minutes, a 94% reduction that saves 376 hours a month. Read the case study.

Frequently asked questions

What emails can't my ESP automate?

Most ESPs can't build emails from content or data that lives outside them: spreadsheets, APIs, CMS entries, podcasts, release notes, or several sources combined into one send. Some can email a single blog feed, and several enterprise platforms have no RSS-to-email at all.

What is RSS-to-email?

RSS-to-email is an automation that watches an RSS feed and emails new items to a list on a schedule or when new items appear. It is the simplest form of content-to-email automation.

Does Marketo have RSS-to-email?

Marketo has no native RSS-to-email feature. Feedotter adds it, along with digests from multiple feeds and emails built from outside data, and sends through your existing Marketo account.

Is Feedotter a replacement for Mailchimp's RSS feature?

No. Feedotter sends through Mailchimp and covers what the built-in feature wasn't designed for: multiple sources, interest-group personalization, designed templates and per-article reporting. Your audience and reporting stay in Mailchimp.

Do I have to change ESPs to automate content emails?

No. Feedotter hands the finished email to your existing ESP. Contacts, segmentation, delivery and reporting stay where they are, and nothing is migrated.

In summary

• Built-in RSS-to-email handles the simple case: one blog, one audience, a simple layout. Many enterprise ESPs don't include it at all.
• Its limits show up in images, layout, multiple feeds, filtering, segment routing and per-article reporting.
• Beyond RSS, most ESPs can't build emails from spreadsheets, APIs, CMS entries or multiple sources.
• Feedotter automates those emails and sends them through the ESP you already use, with no migration.
• If someone rebuilds the same email by hand every week, built-in RSS isn't enough.

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