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Dynamic Campaigns

Dynamic Campaigns

Build a campaign template that automatically includes your latest blog posts.

So far, every campaign you have sent uses static content: the same email for every subscriber. In this final step, you will create a dynamic template that pulls your latest blog posts into the email, and set it up as a repeating weekly digest.

# What Are Dynamic Templates

By default, campaign templates render once and the same HTML is sent to every subscriber. Dynamic templates are different: they are rendered once per subscriber at send time, meaning the template can include live data from your site using CMS components and Twig logic.

Enable dynamic rendering by setting isDynamic = "1" on the campaignTemplate component.

Note: dynamic templates increase database storage because a copy of each rendered email is saved per subscriber. For large lists, this is an important consideration.

# Creating the Blog Digest Template

This template uses the collection component from the Creating a Blog tutorial to pull in the latest published posts.

Create a new page at pages/campaign/blog-digest.htm:

title = "Blog Digest"
url = "/campaign/blog-digest/:code"
description = "Weekly digest with the latest blog posts"

[campaignTemplate]
isDynamic = "1"
verifyPage = "subscribe/confirmed"
unsubscribePage = "subscribe/goodbye"

[collection]
handle = "Blog\Post"

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
    "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">

<html lang="en">
<head>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
    <title>
        Blog Digest
    </title>
</head>

<body style="margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #f3f4f6;">

    <table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" width="100%">
    <tr>
    <td align="center" style="padding: 24px 0;">

        <!-- Email container -->
        <table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" width="600" style="width: 600px; background-color: #ffffff; border-radius: 8px; overflow: hidden;">

            <!-- Header -->
            <tr>
                <td style="background-color: #1e3a5f; padding: 24px 32px; text-align: center;">
                    <h1 style="margin: 0; color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 24px; font-weight: bold;">
                        Weekly Blog Digest
                    </h1>
                </td>
            </tr>

            <!-- Intro -->
            <tr>
                <td style="padding: 32px 32px 16px;">
                    <div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.6; color: #333333;">
                        <p style="margin: 0;">
                            {text name="greeting" label="Greeting"}Hi {first_name}, here are our latest posts this week.{/text}
                        </p>
                    </div>
                </td>
            </tr>

            <!-- Blog posts -->
            {% set posts = collection.take(5).get() %}
            {% for post in posts %}
                <tr>
                    <td style="padding: 16px 32px; {{ not loop.last ? 'border-bottom: 1px solid #e5e7eb;' }}">
                        <div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
                            <h2 style="margin: 0 0 4px; font-size: 18px; color: #1e3a5f;">
                                <a href="{{ 'blog-post'|page({slug: post.slug}) }}" style="color: #1e3a5f; text-decoration: none;">
                                    {{ post.title }}
                                </a>
                            </h2>
                            <p style="margin: 0 0 8px; font-size: 12px; color: #9ca3af;">
                                {{ post.published_at_date|date('F j, Y') }}
                            </p>
                            {% if post.excerpt %}
                                <p style="margin: 0; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.5; color: #4b5563;">
                                    {{ post.excerpt }}
                                </p>
                            {% endif %}
                        </div>
                    </td>
                </tr>
            {% endfor %}

            <!-- Footer -->
            <tr>
                <td style="background-color: #f9fafb; padding: 24px 32px; border-top: 1px solid #e5e7eb;">
                    <div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; color: #6b7280; text-align: center; line-height: 1.5;">
                        <p style="margin: 0 0 8px;">
                            You received this email because you subscribed to our newsletter.
                        </p>
                        <p style="margin: 0;">
                            <a href="{browser_url}" style="color: #2563eb; text-decoration: none;">
                                View in browser
                            </a>
                            &nbsp;&bull;&nbsp;
                            <a href="{unsubscribe_url}" style="color: #2563eb; text-decoration: none;">
                                Unsubscribe
                            </a>
                        </p>
                    </div>
                </td>
            </tr>

        </table>

    </td>
    </tr>
    </table>

    {tracking_pixel}

</body>
</html>

This template queries the five most recent blog posts and renders each one with a title, date, and excerpt. Because it is a dynamic template, the blog posts are fetched at send time, so subscribers always receive the latest content.

# How Dynamic Rendering Works

When the campaign processes, the plugin renders the CMS page for each subscriber individually. The collection component runs its query during each render, pulling the latest blog posts from the database. The rendered HTML is stored in the campaign's subscriber pivot table so that:

  • Each subscriber's email is a snapshot of the content at the time it was sent
  • The "View in browser" link shows the exact email that was delivered
  • You can verify what each subscriber received in the backend

The {text} syntax field for the greeting is still editable in the campaign form. Static syntax fields and dynamic CMS components work together in the same template.

# Adding Subscribers on Registration

If you have RainLab.User installed (from the Forum or Helpdesk tutorials), registered users are automatically available as campaign recipients. The Campaign plugin registers an "All registered users" recipient group.

When launching a campaign, you can select this group under Recipient Groups alongside your subscriber lists. This means:

  • Signup form subscribers: anonymous visitors who opted in via the newsletter form
  • Registered users: anyone with an account on your site

You can target both groups with a single campaign, or use them separately for different campaigns.

# Setting Up a Repeating Campaign

A repeating campaign automatically duplicates itself after sending and schedules the next send. This is ideal for a weekly blog digest.

  1. Navigate to Mailing List > Campaigns and create a new campaign
  2. Enter a name like "Weekly Blog Digest" and select the Blog Digest template
  3. Fill in the greeting text. Since the blog posts are pulled dynamically, you only need to write the intro once.
  4. Click Launch campaign and select the "Newsletter" list
  5. Check the Repeating campaign option and select Weekly as the frequency
  6. Optionally check Delayed launch and pick a date and time for the first send (e.g., next Monday morning)
  7. Click Launch

After the campaign sends, the plugin automatically creates a duplicate campaign with a launch date one week in the future. This continues indefinitely until you manually cancel the latest pending campaign.

Each new iteration re-renders the dynamic template, so the blog posts will be different each week as you publish new content.

# Summary

You now have a complete mailing list system built with October CMS:

  1. Plugin Setup: installed Responsiv.Campaign and created a subscriber list
  2. Signup Form: a reusable partial with email confirmation that visitors use to join the mailing list
  3. Campaign Sending: composed and launched an email campaign from the backend
  4. Custom Template: replaced the default template with your own branding and layout
  5. Dynamic Campaigns: a blog digest template that pulls live content, with automatic weekly sends

# Managing Subscribers

The backend provides full subscriber management under Mailing List > Subscribers. You can:

  • View all subscribers with their confirmation status and subscription date
  • Filter subscribers by date range or confirmation status
  • Import subscribers from a CSV file (useful for migrating from another platform)
  • Export your subscriber list to CSV
  • Manually confirm or unsubscribe individual subscribers

Under Mailing List > Lists, you can also add recipients from groups like "All registered users" to a subscriber list.

# Going Further

  • Multiple templates: create different template designs for announcements, product updates, and digests
  • Staggered sending: for large subscriber lists, use the staggered launch option to send in batches and avoid email provider rate limits
  • Meta data: enable the metaData property on the signup component to capture extra subscriber information like interests or preferences. Add <input name="meta[interest]" /> fields to your form.
  • Custom tags: register your own personalization tags from a plugin using the registerMailCampaignTags() method in your Plugin.php file
  • Campaign statistics: after a campaign is sent, the preview page shows open rates, unsubscribe counts, and per-subscriber delivery status

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