Do you want more traffic every time you publish a new blog post? If yes, then you can use Noptin to set up automatic new post notifications on your blog. For free.

There are two types of notifications that you can set up with Noptin.

First, you can automatically send an email to your newsletter subscribers, WordPress users, or WooCommerce customers as soon as you publish new content on your site.

send an email to your subscribers when you publish new content
Example new post notification

The second notification type involves sending a daily, weekly, or monthly email digest containing your latest blog posts, events, or other custom content types.

Email digest of your latest content
Example of a latest posts digest email

Sending an email of your latest content to your subscribers increases your website’s traffic and your newsletter subscribers never miss any content you publish.

This guide shows you how you can set up such a system.

What You’ll Learn

  • How to automatically send new post notification emails to your newsletter subscribers whenever you publish new content in WordPress.
  • How to automatically send a daily, weekly, or monthly email digest of your latest content.
  • How to let subscribers select which type of email notifications they would like to receive.

Prerequisites

To follow along with this tutorial, make sure that you’ve installed the latest version of Noptin on your WordPress website.

Noptin is a free and lightweight WordPress newsletter plugin. It allows you to add newsletter subscription forms to your WordPress website, send your newsletter subscribers one-time emails, and automatically notify them whenever you publish a new blog post, product, or custom post type.

How to install Noptin

For more features, make sure to install The Ultimate Addons Pack. It allows you to:-

  • Limit new content notification emails to specific tags, categories, or custom taxonomies.
  • Send new content notification emails for products, listings, and other content types in addition to blog posts.
  • Notify WordPress users or WooCommerce customers instead of newsletter subscribers.

For example,

You can set up a new products notifications email that is only sent to WooCommerce customers, and a new blog post notification email that is only sent to newsletter subscribers.

You can also install the appropriate integration to send notifications to an external email service provider such as Mailchimp.

How to create a new posts notification email

To do this:-

First, open the email campaigns page by clicking on the Noptin > Email Campaigns link in your WordPress admin dashboard.

Open the email campaigns page

Next, click on the Automated Emails tab to open the Automations page.

click on automated emails tab

If you haven’t set up any automated email, Noptin will display a screen allowing you to create your first automation. If you already have an automated email, click on the create new automation button to set up a new automated email.

create a new automation

There are two types of new-post notification emails that you can create.

  1. New Post Notification – Notifies your subscribers or users every time you publish new content.
  2. Post Digest – Sends your subscribers a daily, weekly, or monthly email highlighting your latest content.
set-up a new post notification email

Click on the set-up button for the type of automated email you want. Noptin will then open up a new screen allowing you to configure the automated email.

We recommend setting up several types of new-post notification emails and letting your subscribers select the type of notifications they want.

Editing the latest posts notification email

Most of the time you will want to edit the notification email to ensure that it matches your website’s tone.

In the email editor, you can edit every part of your notification including…

… the subject of the notification emails …

Editing the email subject

… the preview text …

… or the main email body.

The email notification body

For example, you can easily add an image to the email body and it will appear on all notifications sent by this specific automation.

Finally, set the automation’s status as active and save your changes.

Activate email automation

TIP:

You can use any of our email merge tags in your email subject, body, and preview texts.

From now on, your email subscribers will be notified every time that you publish a new blog post.

Sample notification emails

NOTE:

Noptin will not send any new post notifications unless you activate the email automation as shown above.

If you ever wish to come back to this page and edit the automation, you can do so by clicking on the name of automation from the automations overview page.

Opening an automation in the editor

How to set what post types to include in a post digest email

Noptin will only send new post notification emails and the latest-post digest emails for blog posts. This section is only relevant if you’re using the Ultimate Add-ons Pack.

The [[post_digest]] merge tag allows you to specify what post types to display.

You can specify several post types in a single merge tag.

For example, this merge tag will display the latest products and posts in a single section.

[[post_digest post_type="product,post"]]

Alternatively, you can use multiple merge tags to display each custom post type in its own section.

For example, this merge tag will display the latest products and posts in separate sections.

[[post_digest post_type="post" title="Latest Blog Posts"]]

[[post_digest post_type="product" title="Latest Products"]]

If you decide to display each post type in a separate section, we recommend that you pass the section title via the title attribute instead of manually typing a title.

This way, the title won’t print if no posts are found for the given post type.

NOTE:

Remember to use the post type’s slug instead of its label.For example,Use product, page, or post instead of Products, Pages, or Posts.

How to limit the number of posts shown in the post digest email

By default, Noptin displays up to 10 posts in a post digest email. You can, however, set a custom number of posts.

The merge tag below will display a maximum of 4 posts…

For example,

[[post_digest limit=4]]

… while this merge will display all available posts.

[[post_digest limit=-1]]

It is recommended that you display fewer posts in case you’re using multiple sections to display different post types.

NOTE: The latest post notification email will only display posts published in the preceding period.

For example,

If you set a limit of 8 and you only publish 4 blog posts, the notification email will display 4 blog posts.

How to limit notifications to certain categories

Noptin sends new post notification emails and the latest post digest emails for all categories. This section is only relevant if you’re using the Ultimate Add-ons Pack.

The [[post_digest]] merge tag allows you to limit blog posts by their categories.

For example,

You can display blog posts that have a given category (and any children of that category) by providing the category ID as shown in the example below:

[[post_digest post_type="post" cat="8"]]

This is the same as above except that it ignores child categories:

[[post_digest post_type="post" category__in="8"]]

You can also use the category slug:

[[post_digest post_type="post" category="tutorials"]]

To display blog posts that have several categories, use a comma to separate the category ids as shown below:-

[[post_digest post_type="post" cat="5,7"]]

This is the same as above except that it does not show posts from any children of these categories

[[post_digest post_type="post" category__in="5,7"]]

You can also use category slugs. The example below will only display blog posts that are EITHER categorized as tutorials and news.

[[post_digest post_type="post" category="tutorials,news"]]

To display blog posts that have ALL of these categories, use a plus (+) instead of a comma (,). The example below will only display blog posts that are categorized as BOTH tutorials and news.

[[post_digest post_type="post" category="tutorials+news"]]

You can also use the category ID instead of the slug as shown below:

[[post_digest post_type="post" category__and="5,7"]]

To display all blog posts except those from a given category, prefix its id with a minus sign (-). The example below will only display posts from the category with ID 14 and skip those that have either category ID 10 or 29.

[[post_digest post_type="post" cat="-10,14,-29"]]

You can also exclude multiple categories this way:

[[post_digest post_type="post" category__not_in="5,7"]]

NOTE: The above merge tags will only work if you’re sending the latest post notification email for blog posts. Check out the taxonomies section in case you’re sending it for custom post types.

How to limit notifications to certain tags

Noptin sends new post notification emails and the latest post digest emails for all tags. This section is only relevant if you’re using the Ultimate Add-ons Pack.

The [[post_digest]] merge tag allows you to limit blog posts by their tags.

For example,

You can display blog posts that have a given tag as shown in the example below (note that we’re using the tag’s slug):

[[post_digest post_type="post" tag="video"]]

This is the same as above but we’re using the tag’s ID instead:

[[post_digest post_type="post" tag_id="5"]]

The example below will display blog posts that have EITHER the tags tutorials OR news.

[[post_digest post_type="post" tag="tutorials,news"]]

This is the same as above except that it uses the tags’ IDs instead of slugs.

[[post_digest post_type="post" tag__in="5,7,13"]]

Use a plus (+) instead if you want to display blog posts that have BOTH tags.

[[post_digest post_type="post" tag="tutorials+news"]]

This is the same as above except that it uses the tags’ IDs instead of slugs.

[[post_digest post_type="post" tag__and="5,7,13"]]

You can also display blog posts that do not have any of the two tag ids 3 and 4:

[[post_digest post_type="post" tag__not_in="3,4"]]

NOTE: The above merge tags will only work if you’re sending the latest post notification email for blog posts. Check out the taxonomies section in case you’re sending it for custom post types.

How to limit notifications to certain taxonomies

Noptin sends new post notification emails and the latest post digest emails for all custom taxonomy terms. This section is only relevant if you’re using the Ultimate Add-ons Pack.

Review the above two sections if you’re sending post digests for blog posts and need to limit posts by category or tag.

The [[post_digest]] merge tag allows you to specify what custom taxonomy terms to display.

For example,

You can display products that are in a given product category as shown in the example below (note that we’re using the taxonomy as the key and the term slug as the value):

[[post_digest post_type="product" product_cat="hoodies"]]

This is the same as above but we’re using the term’s ID instead by adding ‘_ids‘ to the taxonomy:

[[post_digest post_type="product" product_cat_ids="5"]]

The example below will display products that have EITHER been categorized as hoodies OR tshirts.

[[post_digest post_type="product" product_cat="hoodies,tshirts"]]

This is the same as above except that it uses the terms’ IDs instead of slugs.

[[post_digest post_type="product" product_cat_ids="5,7,13"]]

Append ‘_and' to a taxonomy to display posts that have ALL the terms.

[[post_digest post_type="product" product_cat_and="hoodies,tshirts"]]

This is the same as above except that it uses the terms’ IDs instead of slugs.

[[post_digest post_type="product" product_cat_ids_and="5,7,13"]]

You can exclude multiple terms by appending ‘_not_in‘ to the taxonomy as shown:

[[post_digest post_type="product" product_cat_not_in="hoodies,tshirts"]]

This works the same as the above example except it uses the term IDs instead of slugs:

[[post_digest post_type="product" product_cat_ids_not_in="3,4"]]

NOTE: This will only work for custom taxonomies.

How to filter posts by custom fields

Noptin sends the latest posts digest emails for all posts regardless of their custom fields (post meta). This section is only relevant if you’re using the Ultimate Add-ons Pack.

The [[post_digest]] merge tag allows you to filter posts by their custom fields.

For example,

You can display posts where the custom field key is “color“, regardless of the custom field value…

[[post_digest meta_key="color"]]

… or display posts where the custom field value is “blue“, regardless of the custom field key.

[[post_digest meta_value="blue"]]

You can also combine the two to display posts with a given meta key and value.

[[post_digest meta_key="color" meta_value="blue"]]

The meta_compare property dictates how the meta_value property is evaluated. The example below displays posts where the meta_value is NOT “blue“.

[[post_digest meta_key="color" meta_value="blue" meta_compare="!="]]

Possible values for meta_compare are:-

ComparisonDescription
=– Is equal to
!=Is not equal to
>Is greater than
>=Is greater than or equal to
<Is less than
<=Is less than or equal to
LIKEIs like
NOT LIKEIs not like
INIs in
NOT INIs not in
BETWEENIs between
NOT BETWEENIs not between
EXISTSExists
NOT EXISTSDoes not exist
REGEXPMatches a regular expression
NOT REGEXPDoes not match the regular expression

The default is =.

If the meta_value is numeric, use meta_value_num instead.

For example,

To display products where the custom field key is “_price” and the custom field value is LESS THAN OR EQUAL TO 22:

[[post_digest post_type="product" meta_key="_price" meta_value_num="22" meta_compare="<="]]

How to only send posts from certain authors

Noptin sends the latest posts digest emails for all posts regardless of their authors. This section is only relevant if you’re using the Ultimate Add-ons Pack.

The [[post_digest]] merge tag allows you to only display blog posts that were written by certain authors. This might be useful in cases where you only want to promote posts that are written by sponsors or premium authors.

The example below only displays posts from the user with an ID of 12.

[[post_digest author=12]]

You can also use the user_nicename instead.

[[post_digest author_name=brian]]

This example displays posts from multiple authors…

[[post_digest author__in="1,12,17"]]

… while this example displays all posts except those written by certain authors.

[[post_digest author__not_in="1,12,17"]]

How to order the posts in your post digest email

Noptin sends your post digests ordered by the dates they were created. This section is only relevant if you’re using the Ultimate Add-ons Pack.

The [[post_digest]] merge tag allows you to change the order of the posts.

For example,

You might want to order new products by the number of sales or order the latest blog posts by their comment count. The examples below demonstrate how to do this.

This example shows how to order the posts in your digest email by their title in ascending order.

[[post_digest orderby="title" order="ASC"]]

The orderby attribute accepts one of:-

ValueDescription
IDOrders posts by their ID.
authorOrders posts by their author.
titleOrders posts by their title.
typeOrders posts by their post type. This is useful when displaying several posts in a single section.
dateOrders the posts by their creation date.
modifiedOrders the posts by their last modification date.
parentOrders the posts by their parent ID. This is useful if you need to group posts by their parents.
randOrders the posts randomly.
menu_orderOrders pages or custom post types by their page order.
comment_countOrders the posts by the number of comments/popularity.
meta_valueOrders the posts by their meta values. Only use this if you’ve set the meta key attribute.
meta_value_numSimilar to above, but in cases where the meta_value expects a numeric value.

You can specify several values for the orderby attribute as shown in the next example which orders products by their prices and falls back to their titles in cases where two or more products have the same prices.

[[post_digest post_type="product" meta_key="_price" orderby="meta_value_num title" order="DESC"]]

How to limit recipients of the new post notification emails

If you have the Lists addon, you can filter the recipients of the notification based on which lists they belong to.

Limit notifications to a specif list

The same applies to tags.

Available merge tags

You can use the following email tags in addition to the default email tags provided by Noptin.

  • [[post_title]] – This will be replaced by the post’s title.
  • [[post_excerpt]] – This will be replaced by the post’s excerpt.
  • [[post_content]] – Will be replaced by the post’s content.
  • [[post_author]] – This will be replaced by the author’s display name.
  • [[post_author_email]] – Will be replaced by the author’s email address.
  • [[post_author_login]] – Will be replaced by the author’s login name.
  • [[post_author_id]] – This will be replaced by the author’s ID.
  • [[post_date]] – Will be replaced by the post’s publication date.
  • [[post_url]] – This will be replaced by the post’s URL.
  • [[post_id]] – Will be replaced by the post’s ID.
  • [[comment_count]] – This will be replaced by the number of comments the post has.
  • [[custom_fields.$field]] – Replace $field with the field name to reference a custom field’s value.

Using the [[custom_fields.$field]] tag together with the Advanced Custom Fields plugin can be very powerful.

For example,

You can use a custom field to specify different email content for each post instead of using its excerpt or content.

How to set the sending time

If you’re setting up a new post notification email, you can set the email to send out immediately or wait for a given number of minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or years.

You can find the correct settings in the “Timing” meta box.

delay new post notification email

On the other hand, post-digests can be set to send out daily, weekly, or monthly. You can find the actual settings in the “Save” meta box.

How to let subscribers select the type of latest post notifications they want to receive

We recommend that you let subscribers select the type of new content notifications that they would like to receive. You can do this using custom fields.

First, create a dropdown field containing the available options…

create new post notifications custom field
Example showing available options

… then use the “Recipients” meta box to filter subscribers.

filter recipients of new post notification

If you would rather not send this email to subscribers, you can still use this section to set the email to send to:-

WordPress Users

send email to wordpress users
Notify WordPress users

WooCommerce Customers, …

send email to woocommerce customers
Notify WooCommerce Customers

or your external CRM contacts.

send an email to activecampaign subscribers

How to manually send a post digests notification

Noptin automatically schedules your post-digest notifications and then sends them at the time you’ve specified. Follow these steps to manually send a post-digest notification:-

First, open the email campaigns page by clicking on the Noptin > Email Campaigns link in your WordPress admin dashboard…

Open email campaigns page

Next, click on the “Automated Emails” tab to open the automated emails page.

Open automated email page

Finally, hover your mouse over the campaign you want to send then click on the “Send Campaign” button that shows up.

manually send post notifications

How to view campaign stats

Noptin allows you to see which of your subscribers opened your new post notification emails, and which of them clicked on links in the emails.

To do this:-

First, open the email campaigns page by clicking on the Noptin > Email Campaigns link in your WordPress admin dashboard…

open email campaigns page

… then locate your new post notification email in the newsletter campaigns overview page.

new post notification email overview

Here you can:-

  • Preview the notification email.
  • Duplicate the email as a normal Noptin newsletter campaign.
  • Delete the notification email.
  • Stop the sending queue (in case the notification email is still sending).
  • View how many subscribers received your new post notification email.
  • Check how many subscribers opened your new post notification email.
  • View how many subscribers clicked on your new post notification email.
  • Check the date Noptin sent the new post notification email.
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