Look, I get it. Social media is shiny. It’s where everyone hangs out. Your mate Dave keeps banging on about how his cousin’s bakery went viral on TikTok and now they’re rolling in dough (pun absolutely intended). But here’s the thing nobody wants to say out loud: while you’re busy chasing algorithms and hoping the Instagram gods smile upon your latest post, your competitors are quietly raking in cash through their email lists. The Email Marketing vs Social Media debate isn’t really a debate at all when you look at the numbers. And trust me, the numbers don’t lie (unlike that “10x growth in 30 days” guru sliding into your DMs).
The Brutal Truth About Social Media ROI
Social media looks busy. Likes, comments, shares—it all feels productive, doesn’t it? Like you’re really doing something. And let’s not forget the dopamine hit you get from the engagement.
But productive ≠ profitable.
The average ROI for social media marketing sits around 250%. Not terrible, but hold that thought because we’re about to blow that number out of the water.
Here’s what’s actually happening on social:
- Only 30% of marketers believe they can properly measure their social media ROI
- You’re competing with cat videos, influencer drama, and whatever fresh hell the algorithm decided to prioritise today
- Your organic reach is tanking (because platforms want you to pay for ads)
- 50% of consumers might abandon or significantly limit social media usage due to distrust and platform fatigue
And the kicker? You don’t own your audience. Never have, never will. One algorithm change and your carefully built following might as well not exist. Annoy the platforms one too many times, and you lose your account and audience entirely. Going all in on social media is like building your head office on a sandy beach. It might look good, but it’s never going to be stable.
Email Marketing: The Quiet Millionaire Maker
Now let’s talk about email. Boring old email. The thing you’ve probably been neglecting while you stress about posting three times a day on five different platforms.
Email marketing generates between £36 and £40 for every £1 spent. That’s a 3,600% to 4,000% ROI. Some businesses are seeing returns as high as £68 for every pound spent.
Let me spell that out: Email delivers 14-16 times the ROI of social media.
But wait, there’s more (and I promise this isn’t a late-night infomercial):
- 4.6 billion email users worldwide in 2025—that’s more than half the global population
- 93% of users check their email every day, with 42% checking it 3-5 times daily
- 73% of B2B buyers prefer to be contacted over email—double any other method
- Nearly 50% of consumers made a purchase directly from an email in the past year
Oh, and that whole “owning your audience” thing? With email, you actually do. No algorithm can take away your list. No platform can decide that your subscribers don’t get to see your content.
“But Everyone’s On Social Media!”
Yeah, and everyone’s also ignoring 99% of what they see on there.
Email campaign click-to-conversion rates grew by 27.6% in 2024, indicating that people who engage with emails are increasingly likely to buy. Meanwhile, your Instagram post is competing with 95 million other photos and videos uploaded that day.
Social media is a discovery channel. Email is a conversion channel. There’s a massive difference.
Think of it this way: social media is like shouting across a crowded pub hoping someone hears you. Email is like having a one-on-one conversation with someone who’s already raised their hand and said, “Yes, I want to hear from you.”
The Small Business Reality Check
Right now, you’re probably thinking: “But I need to be on social media! That’s where my customers are!”
Here’s the hard truth—you don’t have the bandwidth to do both brilliantly. And doing social media poorly while neglecting email is like choosing to juggle flaming torches when you could be printing money.
Small businesses have three resources that are always in short supply:
- Time
- Money
- Mental capacity
87% of B2B marketers use email to drive new leads, and 31% say it’s their top revenue-generating channel. Yet here you are, stressed about whether you should be on Threads or if TikTok is “right for your brand.”
Your ideal clients aren’t scrolling social media hoping to stumble across your services. They’re checking their email while having their morning coffee, actively looking for solutions to their problems.
What Email Does That Social Media Can’t
Let’s get specific about why email beats social for small businesses:
Personalisation that actually works:
Marketers using AI to personalise emails see a 41% increase in revenue and a 13.44% increase in click-through rates. Try getting that kind of targeted personalisation on your Instagram feed.
Automation that makes you money while you sleep:
Automated emails drove 37% of all email-generated sales in 2024, despite making up only 2% of email volume. Set it up once, profit forever. Social media? You stop posting, you stop existing.
Actual ownership of your audience:
Build an email list of even just 100 engaged subscribers, and you’ve got 100 people you can reach whenever you want. Build a social following of 1,000 and you might reach 50 of them on a good day (if you’re lucky and the algorithm is feeling generous).
Measurable results:
Email marketing consistently delivers an average ROI of £36 for every £1 spent. You can track exactly what works, who’s engaging, and what makes you money. Social media analytics are a hot mess of vanity metrics that don’t pay your bills.
The Strategy You Actually Need
I’m not saying delete your social media accounts (although honestly, the peace would be nice. You can read about why I broke up with Facebook and Instagram here). I’m saying stop treating social as your primary marketing channel when email could be doing the heavy lifting.
Here’s what smart small businesses do:
Use social media for what it’s good at:
Discovery, brand awareness, showing personality, building trust. Post when you’ve got something worth saying, not because some “expert” told you to post three times a day or die. I have a guide on choosing the best platform for your business here.
Use email marketing for what it’s brilliant at:
Converting warm leads into paying clients, building relationships, making actual sales, and getting repeat business.
Social media gets people in the door. Email gets them to open their wallet.
Stop Making This Harder Than It Needs to Be
You don’t need to be everywhere. You need to be where it counts.
For B2C brands, email marketing is the channel with the best ROI, beating out paid social, content marketing, and everything else marketers are killing themselves trying to master.
The small businesses winning right now aren’t the ones with the biggest social following. They’re the ones with a solid email list and consistent communication with people who actually want to hear from them.
Your email list is the only marketing asset you truly own. It’s the one that doesn’t disappear when platforms change their rules or influencers move to the next shiny thing.
So yeah, keep your social presence. Show up, be authentic, and connect with people. But for the love of all that is holy, stop treating it like your main revenue driver when email is sitting there, ready to deliver 14 times the return.
The Email Marketing vs Social Media question isn’t which one you should choose. It’s which one deserves most of your limited time and energy.
And the answer? It’s the one that actually pays your bills.
However, if you’re open rates are through the floor, then email marketing is doing you a disservice. Because it doesn’t matter how great or convincing your actual emails are, if nobody opens them, nobody reads them. My clients and I consistently achieve open rates of over 50% because I create great subject lines.
So why not join me for my next webinar, “Why Your Sales Emails Get Ignored (And How to Fix It in 5 Simple Steps)”? Simply sign up here, and if you can’t make it live, a replay will be available.
Oh, and in the meantime, here are 20 FREE irresistible headline templates that can also be used to improve your subject lines
Hey, I’m Em…
I’m a copywriter and content strategist who escaped the soul-crushing world of recruitment to build a business on my own terms. After rage-quitting 6 years ago with no plan (and somehow making it work), I now help time-poor businesses get their marketing sorted without the corporate bullshit. I write content that actually sounds like them—not like every other boring corporate voice in your industry.
Ready to stop getting ghosted and start converting?
If you’re tired of prospects going silent and want content that actually makes people respond, let’s talk. My Content Conversion Package gives you done-for-you content that gets noticed – across email, social, blog, and web copy – without you having to lift a finger. Book a call, and let’s sort out your content properly.