This article shows you how to connect your RSS feeds so your dynamic content flows into your Letterhead Curations library.
Letterhead gives you the flexibility to pull dynamic content into your Curations Library, where articles can be stored, reviewed, and inserted into your newsletters. You can populate your Curations Library via RSS Feeds, Browser Extension, curations API or manually via the curations page.
This article focuses specifically on how to add via RSS Feeds.
What is an RSS Feed?
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a standard web feed format used to distribute frequently updated content—such as news articles, blog posts—in a machine-readable format. By connecting a valid RSS feed to Letterhead, you can automatically ingest content into your Curations Library and prepare it for publishing.
Why Use RSS with Letterhead?
By linking your RSS feeds, you enable Letterhead to automatically retrieve and store content from your site or other sources, maintain an up-to-date curation workflow, and simplify newsletter production by surfacing fresh content regularly.
💡 Tip
For one-off URLs you want to use directly in a newsletter, use the URL block instead of adding a feed.
Important Guidelines Before Adding RSS Feeds
1. Validate Your Feed First
Use a free tool like RSS Feed Validator to ensure your feed is functioning properly. Usually if it passes this, it should work in Letterhead.
If you're using a feed from a third party (such as a news source or publishing partner), you’ll need to contact them if the feed fails validation.
2. Safelist Letterhead's Crawlers
To ensure uninterrupted access to our RSS feeds, please ensure that the following crawler's domain is safe-listed:
Safelist Domain: *.tryletterhead.com | letterhead.email | letterhead.ai
By safe-listing the mentioned domains, you enable our crawlers to efficiently access and retrieve content from your RSS feeds.
In addition to this, the Letterhead crawler is labeled "LetterheadCurationBot", and its user-agent is below:
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; LetterheadCurationBot/1.0; +http://tryletterhead.com/bots)
How to Add an RSS Feed to Letterhead
Follow these steps to add a feed to your Curations Library:
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Using the Left navigation bar, go to Newsletters > Curations
- On the Curations page, select the RSS Feeds tab.
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Navigate to the RSS Feeds tab
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Click Add Feed
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Provide a Title, Description, and your RSS Feed URL
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Choose whether or not to enable Crawl Feed: If you plan to use the RSS block directly, it’s best to disable this option. For feeds requiring customized behavior, read more about using Advanced Crawl
- You can choose to add default tags to this feed to automatically categorize new items as they’re imported. If set, all new items from this feed will include the selected tags by default, helping you keep your content organized. Learn more here.
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Choose how long Letterhead should keep your curated items in the library.
Under Automatically Delete Old Curations, select a time range (e.g., 7 days, 30 days), or choose the “Never” option if you want your feed’s content to remain available indefinitely.
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Selecting Never marks your feed as evergreen, allowing content to persist without automatic deletion
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After saving your feed, a confirmation message will appear. Within 20 minutes, your content should begin to populate in the Stories and Articles section of your Curations Library. Letterhead will automatically check for updates every 15 minutes per feed.
Repulling Stories When the Published Date Is Updated
Previously, Letterhead did not repull a story if the only change in the RSS feed was an updated Published Date. Now, if the publication date of an article is changed on your site, Letterhead will recognize this update and repull the story into your Curations Library with the new date.
Example:
If a story was originally pulled in yesterday with that day’s publication date, but you update the article on your site today with a new publication date, Letterhead will now refresh the story to show today’s date in your Curations Library.
This ensures your newsletters reflect the correct order of stories when publication dates are adjusted at the source.
Note:
We’ve added the ability to tag Curations (from RSS feeds, the Browser Extension, or websites) directly in the Curations Library Table. You can now add existing tags or create new ones inline without leaving the table.
This improvement makes tagging faster, reduces extra clicks, and encourages more consistent use of tags — helping you keep content organized and easier to find.
Need Help?
If you have questions or need assistance, please contact our support team at support@tryletterhead.com or log a support ticket through the Help Center!