Most efficient way to create an email from many different RSS feeds?

Question

I'm building an email that pulls from 22 different RSS feeds.

As I understand it, those 22 feeds will be static and un-changing. Each one of those 22 feeds will be pulled into its own content block (22 different content blocks), and, each one of those content blocks will be styled differently.

What's the best, most efficient way to accomplish this?

Can I manually store the content of those feeds inside of a Data Extension? Is it possible to somehow read the contents of a feed and store the contents in a data extension? Is this an advisable way to proceed?

Answer 1

I would do it something like this in EACH content area.

%%[
      VAR @var1, @var2, @var3  /*etc.*/

      SET @var1 = LOOKUP(/*Done based on primary key*/)

      IF(ISNULL(@var1)) THEN
           SET @var1 = BuildRowSetFromXML(HTTPGET(/*feed goes here*/))
           INSERTDE(/*put rowset in DE*/)
      ENDIF
           /*iterate over the rowset and set variables in email*/
]%%
MAIN EMAIL HERE.

Good luck

Answer 2

We did something similar to @Timothy:

%%[Var @xml, @xml1, @titles, @title, @descs, @desc, @links, @link, @cnt
Set @xml1 = ContentAreaByName("my contents\Blog_Feed")
Set @xml = Replace(@xml1,'content:encoded','contentencoded')
Set @titles = BuildRowsetFromXML(@xml,"//item/title",1)
Set @descs = BuildRowsetFromXML(@xml,"//item/description",1)
Set @links = BuildRowsetFromXML(@xml,"//item/link",1)
Set @rootdescs = BuildRowsetFromXML(@xml,"//root/description",1)
Set @roottitles = BuildRowsetFromXML(@xml,"//root/title",1)
Set @images = BuildRowsetFromXML(@xml,"//image/description",1)

//If RowCount(@titles) > 5 THEN
//SET @rows = 5
//ELSE
SET @rows = RowCount(@titles)
//ENDIF
]%%

EACH CONTENT AREA
%%[
IF @rows >= 1 THEN
for @cnt = 1 to @rows do
Set @title = Field(Row(@titles,@cnt),"Value")
Set @desc = Field(Row(@descs,@cnt), "Value")
Set @link = Field(Row(@links,@cnt), "Value") ]%%

a href="%%=RedirectTo(@link)=%%" alias="%%=v(@title)="%%" title="%%=v(@title)=%% style="color: #000;">%%=v(@title)=%%
span style="font: normal normal 0.76em Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #444;">%%=v(@desc)=%%


%%[ 
NEXT @cnt 
ENDIF
]%%