How can I add curated content to my newsletter?

The Curations block places content from your Curations library into your newsletter — reliably and, if you like, automatically. It only retrieves articles that have already been curated into Letterhead, which you can do with the Chrome Extension, the Curations interface, automated feeds, or Zapier/API.

Add the Curations block

1. From Emails, start from scratch or open an existing template/draft.
2. Drag the Curations block from the Dynamic content section of the block panel into your newsletter.
3. Click the block to open its settings:
   • Search — keywords to match curated articles.
   • Source and Tags — filter which curations are eligible.
   • Date curated — limit to a recent window (e.g., the last seven days).
   • Number of items — how many curations to pull in.
   • Skip — skip past curations you don’t want.
4. Click Load. Matching articles appear in the block right away. If nothing matches your criteria, an error message appears — adjust your search and click Load again.

Style the loaded content

You can set all of this up before or after the articles load:

• change the layout of the curation(s);
• switch Display options on and off (title, excerpt, date, source, author) — any of them, whether or not the story you loaded has something for it, so you can set a block up before its content arrives. A field with nothing in it simply doesn’t appear in the email;
• keep the original Image ratio or crop it for better display;
• style the Border (affects the block’s appearance, not its content), Color of background and text, Font, and Padding.

These work the same way whether the block’s content came from your curation library, a WordPress post, or an RSS feed.

Format text

Apply bold, italic, and underline to any text inside the block using the same inline formatting controls you use in other block types. Click into the block, select the text, and apply the formatting. Your choice sticks through saving and into the delivered email, including company-template previews and server-built sends.

Move the image

With a vertical layout, you can move the image up or down among the block’s other elements — title, excerpt, and any additional text — and the sent email matches what you see. Common choices are the image above the title for a visual-first look, between the title and excerpt, or below all the text.

Link the headline

Display options includes Link the Title to the Story, which is on to start with: the headline becomes a link to the article, so readers can click the title as well as the call to action. Turn it off when you’d rather the call to action be the only way through.

This setting is the only thing that decides where a headline points, so you can paste headlines in freely. When you copy one from a publisher’s site the link behind the words usually comes with it, but Letterhead drops that link and uses the story link instead — you don’t need to paste as plain text or retype anything.

Older newsletters and templates get the same treatment: the next time you open one, any link that arrived with a pasted headline is removed from it, and that headline points to the story from then on. Nothing else about the block changes, and you don’t have to re-save it for the sent email to be right.

Worth knowing if you had relied on the old behavior: a headline pasted with its own link used to send readers to that link rather than to the story. It now goes to the story, and a link you pasted into a headline is not kept.

Style the call to action

Every curation block can invite readers to the full story, either as a button or as a link at the end of the description.

1. In the block’s settings, open Display Options and switch on CTA Button.
2. Type the wording you want in Button Content — “Read more” is the default, but “Keep reading” or “See the full recipe” often lands better.
3. Under Call to action style, pick one:
   • Button — a solid block of color on its own line, with its own controls for background and text color, alignment, corner rounding, and padding.
   • End of text — the wording becomes a link at the end of the description, flowing on from the last sentence.

Your choice is per block, so one story can lead with a button while the next ends on a quieter link.

When you pick End of text, the link always borrows the link styling you already set for the newsletter under Font Settings — color, weight, style, and decoration — so it matches every other link your readers see. There’s no separate color or emphasis control for this style, and no alignment of its own, because it follows the description. Switching between the two styles keeps both sets of settings, so you can try the end-of-text link and go back to the button without losing how it was set up.

The end-of-text link is also the lighter of the two — it joins a paragraph you were already sending rather than adding a block of its own, which helps keep your email small enough that inbox providers show the whole thing rather than cutting it short.

Show custom fields

When you add custom fields to curated articles, those details appear directly in the newsletter, styled to match your content:

• While composing — custom fields are grouped under clear headings in the curated article section, so you can review and update values before sending.
• In the sent email — the fields display alongside the article content, formatted to blend with the rest of your layout.

If your curated content comes from WordPress, field mapping can fill these values automatically.

Randomize the story order

Randomized order shuffles how stories load into the block, so when the same block fills from your library more than once — a templated daily digest, for example — the stories arrive in a different order instead of the same story always sitting on top.

In the block’s settings, check Randomize Options; uncheck it to go back to the default ordering. Your other block settings still apply — tag and feed filters, the number of items, and the skip-items offset all work exactly as before, and stories already loaded into other curation blocks in the same email are excluded, so randomization won’t show the same story twice in one send.

This is an early access feature, so you may not see the Randomize Options checkbox yet — contact Letterhead support if you’d like it enabled for your account.

Using curations in automation templates

To have an automation assemble curated content for you, build the Curations block into a template:

1. Curate articles ahead of time — the block only pulls from what’s already in your library.
2. In Emails → Templates, start from scratch or open a template. Active templates must be deactivated before editing.
3. Add and configure the Curations block as above, with one difference: under Show items added in the past, avoid the default Use exact dates option — it only pulls stories curated on one specific date. Pick a rolling window instead.
4. Click Preview and schedule to review, then activate the template.
5. Set up your automation to send the template — see automation triggers.

Notes for automations: there’s no Load button in templates — content loads on the automation’s schedule, usually about an hour before send time. If no article matches, the block simply doesn’t render (including in preview), so the newsletter sends without that section.

Deciding between blocks? See One content block for your library, feeds, and links. For everything else, see Working in Emails.