Mailchimp does not have a native recurring newsletter feature — but with the right template setup, each send takes under two minutes with no content to rebuild. This guide covers how to configure the Revisual events embed so your newsletter always shows current events automatically, and what the realistic scheduling workflow looks like.
Automated email sounds like it should mean: events go into Google Calendar, subscribers receive a newsletter, nobody does anything in between. In practice, most setups described as automated still require someone to open Mailchimp, check the events section, and click send.
The realistic goal is not zero interaction – Mailchimp does not support truly recurring newsletters that send indefinitely without any input. The realistic goal is a setup where each send requires almost no work: the content never needs rebuilding, the events are always current, and the only step per send is duplicating the campaign and setting a new date.
This guide covers how to get there – specifically the Revisual embed configuration that makes the events section self-updating, and the practical scheduling workflow that keeps the rest of the process as light as possible.
What makes an event newsletter genuinely low-effort
The distinction worth drawing early: there are two kinds of ‘automated’ email in Mailchimp, and they work differently.
The first is a scheduled single campaign – a newsletter you create, schedule for a specific date, and send once. This is the standard approach, and it requires someone to duplicate the campaign and set a new date for each subsequent send.
The second is a triggered automation – a sequence that fires when something happens, like a new subscriber joining or a date being reached. Triggered automations support drip sequences with a fixed number of steps but not an open-ended recurring send. Customer Journey automations let you define week 1, week 2, week 3 – but you must set the endpoint. They are not the right tool for a regular event digest that runs indefinitely.
For a recurring events newsletter, the first model – scheduled single campaign, duplicated each send – is the practical approach. The automation benefit comes entirely from the events section: because the Revisual embed updates itself at send time, duplicating the campaign and setting a new date is the only work required per send. The content rebuilds itself.
The two components you need
Component 1: An evergreen events embed
The events section of the newsletter needs to show the correct upcoming events at the time of sending – not a snapshot from when the template was built. This requires an embed that reads live data rather than static content.
Revisual provides this via its Mailchimp embed. Under the hood it uses an RSS feed mechanism – Google Calendar events are converted to a feed, which Revisual wraps in a configured widget and delivers as a code snippet for Mailchimp. The evergreen setting is the critical configuration: it tells the embed to always show the next N upcoming events from the send date, rather than events within a fixed date range.
A newsletter sent in March and the same newsletter sent in August will both show the correct upcoming events for their respective send dates. The coordinator adds events to Google Calendar. Nothing else needs to happen for the newsletter to contain current information.
Component 2: A campaign template you duplicate each send
Once the events embed is in place, save the campaign as a Mailchimp template. This template becomes the starting point for every future newsletter send.
Mailchimp does not offer a native recurring newsletter feature – there is no setting that sends the same campaign indefinitely on a weekly or monthly schedule with dynamic content. The practical workflow for most organisations is: duplicate the template, set a new delivery date, schedule it. Because the Revisual embed updates itself at send time, this takes under two minutes. You are setting a date, not rebuilding any content.
For organisations willing to do additional setup, Mailchimp’s RSS campaign type can be configured to send on a schedule when the connected feed updates. Revisual’s embed uses an RSS mechanism, which means an RSS campaign connected to the Revisual feed URL will send automatically when new events are added to Google Calendar. This requires more technical setup and produces less visual control over the output – but it is the closest Mailchimp natively offers to a fully hands-off recurring send.
RSS campaigns. Both approaches work with the Revisual embed.
Setting up the newsletter: step by step
Step 1: Set up the Revisual embed with evergreen configuration
In your Revisual dashboard, connect your Google Calendar and create or open an existing calendar widget. In the widget settings, find the date range configuration and set it to evergreen mode. Set the number of events to show – three to six works well for most newsletters. Configure the visual settings to match your brand.
In the Revisual install wizard, select Mailchimp as your platform and copy the generated embed code.
Step 2: Build your newsletter template
In Mailchimp, create a new campaign or open an existing template. Add a Code Block at the point in the email where you want the events to appear. Paste the Revisual embed code into the Code Block.
The events will not display in the Mailchimp editor canvas – the Code Block will appear empty or show the raw code. This is expected behaviour for dynamic content in Mailchimp. Use Preview mode or send a test email to confirm the events are rendering correctly before using the template for real sends.
Once the events are displaying correctly in preview, save the campaign as a template. This is the template you will duplicate for each send.
Step 3: Save as a template and schedule each send
For each newsletter send: open Mailchimp, find the saved template, duplicate it, set the delivery date and time in the scheduling screen, and schedule it. The events section does not need touching – it will display the current upcoming events from Google Calendar automatically when the campaign sends.
For organisations willing to do additional setup, an RSS campaign connected to the Revisual feed URL will send automatically when events are added to the calendar. Contact Revisual support for the RSS feed URL associated with your widget. This is the more automated path but requires more technical configuration and produces less visual control.
Step 4: Test the full cycle
Before using the template for real sends, test the full cycle: add a test event to Google Calendar, wait a few minutes for it to sync, then send a test email from Mailchimp to confirm the event appears. Check that the evergreen configuration is working – the next upcoming events should display, not past events or events from a fixed date range.
If events do not appear in the test email, check that your Google Calendar is set to public and that the Revisual widget is connected to the correct calendar. The Code Block renders dynamic content at send time, not in the editor – a blank preview in the editor is normal.
Configuration decisions that affect how low-effort the newsletter is
How many events to show
Three to five events is the practical range for most organisations. Fewer than three risks the newsletter arriving with an empty or near-empty events section during quieter periods. More than six makes the email feel like a data dump rather than a curated digest. If your event volume varies significantly by season, consider setting the count to the minimum you would ever want to show and accepting that busier periods will show only the next few.
Whether to include event images
Including event images makes the newsletter significantly more visually engaging, but it requires that images are added to Google Calendar events. If your team consistently adds images to events, enable this. If image coverage is inconsistent, a layout without images will be more reliable – an event without an image in an image-enabled layout typically shows a placeholder or blank space, which looks unfinished.
Whether to link to the website or to individual event pages
Revisual’s redirect URL option routes all event links to your website events page. This is the recommended configuration for organisations using their WordPress site as a communication hub – it concentrates traffic on your own domain rather than sending subscribers to hosted event pages. If you do not have a website events page, linking to individual Revisual hosted event pages is a reasonable alternative.
INTERNAL LINK: ‘website as a communication hub’ – link to /wordpress-event-communication-hub/
What happens when events change after a newsletter has been sent
Once a Mailchimp campaign is sent, the email content is fixed. Recipients received a snapshot of the events at send time. If an event is rescheduled or cancelled after the newsletter has been sent, the email they have does not update.
However, any links in the sent email that point to your website or to Revisual hosted event pages will always show current information. A subscriber who clicks through will see the up-to-date details. For significant changes – cancellations, venue changes, date changes affecting events that were featured prominently – a follow-up email remains the most reliable way to reach subscribers who may not click through.
For the next scheduled send, the updated event will appear correctly or, if cancelled, will not appear at all. The automation handles future sends without intervention.
Frequently Asked Questions
Not natively. Mailchimp does not have a built-in feature for sending the same campaign indefinitely on a recurring schedule. The practical approach for most organisations is to save a campaign as a template and duplicate it for each send – setting a new date each time. Because the Revisual events embed updates itself automatically, this duplication takes under two minutes per send: no content needs rebuilding, only the send date changes.
For a more automated approach, Mailchimp’s RSS campaign type can trigger sends when a connected feed updates. Revisual’s embed uses an RSS mechanism, so it is possible to configure an RSS campaign that sends when new events are added to your Google Calendar – though this requires additional setup and produces a less visually customised output than the standard Code Block approach.
Yes, if the Revisual embed is configured with the evergreen setting. Evergreen mode shows the next N upcoming events from the send date – not events from a fixed date range. A newsletter sent in March and the same template sent in September will both show the correct upcoming events for their respective send dates, automatically.
The template-and-duplicate workflow works on any Mailchimp plan including the free tier, since it uses standard campaign scheduling rather than automation features. The RSS campaign approach – which can trigger sends automatically when events are added to Google Calendar – is available on Essentials and above. Customer Journey automations with time-based triggers are available on Standard and above, but are better suited to drip sequences than open-ended recurring newsletters.
For most small organisations, the free Mailchimp plan combined with the template-and-duplicate workflow is sufficient. The two minutes per send required to duplicate and schedule the campaign is a reasonable ongoing overhead given that no content needs rebuilding.
With the template and Revisual embed in place: open Mailchimp, duplicate the template campaign, set the delivery date, schedule it. Under two minutes. The events section updates itself – you are not copying event details, checking dates, or reformatting anything. The only decision is when to send.
If your Google Calendar has no upcoming events within the window the Revisual embed is configured to show, the events block will be empty in that send. This is worth planning for during quieter periods – either by extending the lookahead window in the evergreen settings to pull in events further ahead, or by skipping the send during known quiet periods and resuming when events are back on the calendar.
Yes. The Revisual events embed occupies one Code Block in your Mailchimp template. The rest of the template is standard Mailchimp content – text blocks, image blocks, buttons, and other sections. Many organisations include a short editorial note or a featured announcement alongside the events block. The events section updates automatically; everything else in the template is static until you choose to update it.
About the author
Piotr Pozniak
Piotr’s is the cofounder of Revisual, a dedicated tool for seamlessly sharing events. With over six years of experience developing the platform, he brings extensive expertise in streamlining business processes through technology solutions. Work with partners across industries has honed his ability to optimize event workflows and enhance data accessibility.
