mailchimp: image quality low + no space between pic and text

Hello,

I am trying to set up an automated email (Mailchimp) to go out everytime I post a new blog post. The email needs to have the featured image and a small except of text (with a link to the full post).

For some reason the image that shows up is very low quality. Since this is a food blog with an emphasis on the photography, that just won’t do. Also, there is no space between the image and the text.

What is the solution? My merge text is below:

*|RSSITEM:TITLE|*
*|RSSITEM:DATE|*

*|RSSITEM:CONTENT|*

Note than when I try *|RSSITEM:CONTENT_FULL|* (which I don’t want anyway, because I don’t want the full blog post) it has the low quality image at the top, but the other images in the post appear at high quality.

Thanks!