Draft a weekly shoppable recipe newsletter in Mailchimp

Every Tuesday at 8am, draft next week's recipe newsletter for me in Mailchimp with a shoppable Instacart link already built into it. Leave it as a draft for me to review. Never send it.

Start in Notion. Use Query a Data Source against my recipe library to find recipes tagged to the current season, working out the current season from today's date. Exclude anything whose last featured date falls within the last 90 days, and treat recipes that have never been featured as eligible. From what comes back, pick the single recipe that best fits the season and my audience, and be ready to tell me in one line why you picked that one.

Send that recipe's ingredients, instructions, servings, and cook time to Instacart Create Recipe Page to generate a shoppable page where readers pick their own store and add every ingredient to a cart in one click. Ingredient quantities go in the measurements field, and Instacart accepts only a limited unit set: each, lb, oz, g, kg, ml, L, cup, tbsp, tsp, gallon. Convert anything outside that set before sending, so a stick of butter becomes 0.5 cup and a pinch becomes a small tsp amount, and fall back to each when a unit does not translate cleanly. Set expires_in close to the 365 day maximum, because newsletter archives stay live and a dead shopping link in an old issue looks bad. Keep the products_link_url that comes back, because that is the link everything else points at.

Draft the newsletter around that recipe. I want two subject line options, preview text, a short intro on why this recipe right now (the season, what is good at the market, why my readers will care), the recipe itself with ingredients, instructions, servings, and cook time, and a clear shop the ingredients call to action pointing at the Instacart link. Match the voice and structure of my recent issues.

Then create the campaign in Mailchimp with Create Campaign against my newsletter audience, using the stronger of the two subject lines plus the preview text, and load the drafted HTML with Set Campaign Content. Mailchimp only holds one subject line, so put the second option at the very top of the email body inside a clearly marked reviewer note along with your one line rationale for the recipe pick, and tell me to delete that note before sending.

Finally, go back to Notion and use Update a Page on that recipe to mark it featured: set the featured status, set the last featured date to today, and store the Instacart link on the page so the same link gets reused next time instead of regenerated. That write-back combined with the 90 day filter is what keeps the rotation honest across runs.

Never send the campaign automatically. Do not call Send Campaign under any circumstances. Create Campaign leaves the campaign in save status, and that is exactly what I want: a draft that waits for me to review and send myself. Finish by telling me which recipe you picked and why, both subject line options, and the Instacart link.