Feed time difference

Hi @jlesliefam,

The 6hr difference you’re seeing is due to the difference between how RSS timestamps are intended on being output.

Your timezone is set to UTC-6hr, so all times you set and see on the post will take that into account (ie. The latest post is 2020-11-20 06:08:00 -06:00) but RSS timestamps use UTC+0 times (ie. That same post will be 2020-11-20 00:08:00 +00:00).

I think everything is operating as it should here, do you have the correct timezone set in your Mailchimp settings? They have a Region and Timezone setting in their account details.

You might be able to get more clarification directly from Mailchimp on the timestamps, as WordPress is properly outputting a UTC+0 date and it’s up to mailchimp to format it into the correct timezone for display.

Thanks so much for checking this out. Very helpful! I confirmed that Mailchimp was also set to CST (UTC-6hr). What’s happening is let’s say I publish the post at 12:00 pm CST, and have Mailchimp set to send out new posts at 2:00 pm. It won’t send until I change the Mailchimp time to 6:00 pm. Does that mean Mailchimp isn’t taking the timezone change into account?

If so, yes, I’ll need to try to get help from Mailchimp.

Does that mean Mailchimp isn’t taking the timezone change into account?

I don’t actually have any Mailchimp experience, but I suspect it might be something on mailchimps end.
Contacting them would probably be a good option, they’ll probably be able to explain it far better than I can.

The support forum for the Mailchimp plugin you’re using may also be able to help, but I assumed you’re using the RSS import feature for Mailchimp.

Thanks for helping me narrow this down to a Mailchimp problem. Grateful.

Hi @jlesliefam
Have you found the solution? I have the same issue.

My WP and MC are set to New York timezone, and my feed <pubDate> is always UTC time (5 hours ahead). And I set in MC to send out the post at 11pm (New York), then it’s always sent one day later… ??

I didn’t know how to fix it, maybe I need to play with the send out time in MC?

Thanks

I don’t yet. I have a free MC account so no support, however I heard you could get support through their Twitter or Facebook pages. So I sent them a message through Twitter and they gave me a support ticket # and are checking it out. I’ll post an update if I hear anything that resolves the issue.

Thanks!
I have a free MC account as well.
Looking forward to hearing from you.

MC has replied back but haven’t been very helpful. I can view the post in the feed immediately after I post a new entry. But it won’t even show up in MC preview until UTC +0000 which is 6 hours after publishing (even with my MC set to Chicago CST – same as my WordPress). I just don’t get it!

Thanks for the update! Sorry to hear that it wasn’t that helpful.

I set MC and WP as New York timezone. MC sent out the new posts without problem for 2-3 days, then missed one day, then picked up the next day.. then repeat the same pattern. So weird

This what I just received from MC:

I’m happy to take a look at this with you. Based on the information you’re giving, it looks like the issue is indeed in WordPress and not Mailchimp. Mailchimp simply searches for the pubdate that’s in the feed, and it looks like WordPress isn’t publishing it to the feed at the same time you publish it.

In general, we advise for blogs to be posted to the feed at least 3 hours before the scheduled send time of your campaign. That is for the time posted in the feed itself though. The issue here, moreso, is that the feed isn’t showing the actual time you’re posting. That is something you would need to address with WordPress. I’ve heard some cases where scheduled blog posts aren’t sent to the feed until someone actually views the blog. WordPress would have more information on this.