Social media vs. email marketing — which is better for 2025?

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Chances are that most of your customers use social media, and most have email, but email marketing vs. social media isn’t a question of one or the other. It’s a question of how and when to use both channels to maximize results.

Consider the delivery method — you send emails, they search social media. Email excels at nurturing and sales through targeted offers and automated sequences (for example, abandoned carts), while social media drives discovery through visual content and real-time interaction.

With Omnisend users seeing an ROI of 68:1 and social media reaching billions of users globally, both channels play vital roles in a comprehensive marketing strategy.

Join us below for a closer look at social media vs. email marketing, including their differences, benefits, use cases, and synergies.

Social media vs. email marketing — key takeaways

• Email excels at sales and nurturing, while social media drives discovery and engagement
• Both channels play roles in marketing your business effectively
• Email marketing shows high ROI (68:1) with deep analytics and owned subscriber lists
• Social media offers broader reach and real-time interaction, but platform algorithms and ad budgets control visibility
• Automated emails generate 37% of orders from just 2% of total sends
• Combining email and social media marketing amplifies results through cross-promotion and integrated campaigns

Differences between email marketing and social media

Aspect	Email marketing	Social media marketing
Audience reach	Targeted reach to subscribers, typically smaller but more engaged	Potential to reach billions, broader but less targeted
Content lifespan	Longer shelf life, emails remain in inbox	Short-lived content due to algorithmic feeds (unless saved or shared)
Cost	Higher ROI (68:1 for Omnisend users), predictable costs	Variable costs, often requires paid promotion
Control	Full control over who sees content and when	Platform algorithms control content visibility
Personalization	Deep personalization (name, behavior, preferences)	Limited personalization options
Analytics	Detailed metrics (opens, clicks, conversions)	Platform-dependent metrics, less granular
Communication	One-to-one, direct communication	One-to-many, broadcast-style
Response time	Scheduled, automated responses	Real-time engagement
Data ownership	Own your subscriber list	Platform owns audience data
Content format	Text-focused with images	Highly visual, multi-format content

Email marketing delivers measurable results for ecommerce, B2B, professional services, and SaaS businesses that need direct sales and nurturing.

Social media performs better for retail, entertainment, hospitality, and local businesses that require visual engagement and community building.

However, most industries see optimal results by combining social media for discovery and email for conversion and customer experience.

Benefits of email marketing

Email marketing provides granular control over targeting and delivery through segmentation, personalization, and automation. You can cover each stage of your customer journey, with the crucial differentiator over social media being that your audience is opted-in.

Here’s what makes email marketing worthwhile:

High conversion rates

Email marketing delivers exceptional ROI, with Omnisend users seeing a 68:1 return compared to an industry average of 36:1.

While automated messages account for only 2% of total sends, they generate 37% of all email orders. Popular workflows include abandoned cart recovery, browse abandonment, back-in-stock, and welcome series.

Omnisend research shows that one in three people who click on an automated email makes a purchase compared to only one in 20 for campaign emails.

Measurable results

Omnisend provides detailed analytics to track campaign performance and drive decisions. Key metrics include conversion rates, open rates, click-through rates, ROI, and revenue per email. 

For ecommerce businesses, direct integration with platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, and Adobe Commerce enables precise tracking of email-generated sales. 

Here’s the Omnisend dashboard Overview section, which presents revenue in interactive charts:

Personalized communication

Enable one-to-one conversations at scale through targeted messaging. Omnisend’s segmentation tools allow you to group subscribers based on behavior, demographics, and purchase history for highly relevant communications. 

Segmentation lets you cut through inbox noise with personalized content that creates more meaningful customer relationships.

List ownership

Your subscriber list is a valuable owned asset, providing direct access to your audience without platform algorithms dictating reach. 

Unlike social media, where visibility often requires increasing ad spend, email gives you complete control of message delivery. 

List ownership means you can engage and target subscribers based on learned behaviors and preferences, not on what social media companies say is best.

Benefits of social media marketing

Social media marketing puts your brand in front of targeted audiences for brand recognition, engagement, and community building. The content you publish on social media requires feed discovery, unlike email, which delivers content to inboxes.

Here are the main benefits to social media marketing:

Brand awareness and reach

Social media platforms provide global visibility, connecting you with billions of potential customers. These platforms break geographical barriers, allowing you to expand your audience across demographics. 

Your future followers could be somewhere you wouldn’t expect. For instance, Indonesia has the largest TikTok audience, with over 157 million users, followed by the US, with over 120 million.

Strategic targeting and content optimization help you cut through digital noise and quickly reach new customer segments.

Visual content engagement

Visual social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok transform marketing through storytelling. Short-form videos, interactive graphics, and authentic imagery capture people’s attention and encourage brand engagement.

Because there are multiple visual social media platforms (Pinterest, Facebook, and Snapchat are three other big ones), you can share the same content on each, analyze the results, and pick your platforms based on custom data.

For instance, Social Insider found that Instagram has double the engagement rate by reach compared to Facebook:

Real-time interaction

Social media shifts audience communication to immediate, two-way conversations that keep your business honest.

For instance, a potential customer might see your ad for a garden office in their feed and add a comment asking how much it costs. Responding to their comment with the price builds trust and helps anyone looking at the ad decide whether to get in touch.

Comments also let you address concerns and gather instant feedback to build trust, humanize your brand, and learn consumer preferences.

When to use email marketing vs. social media

Social media marketing vs. email marketing strategies complement each other, with each channel serving unique purposes in your digital marketing approach.

When to use email marketing

Email marketing works best when building relationships and driving sales with email sequences that guide your customers from purchase to delivery. Some examples include:

• Welcome series: Offer special discounts to encourage first-time purchases 
• Cart recovery campaigns: Win back potential customers who abandoned their carts 
• Post-purchase sequences: Refine your customer experience with automated order confirmations, shipping updates, and follow-up requests for reviews
• Time-sensitive promotional marketing messages: Flash sales and exclusive offers achieve better results through email because they land right in subscribers’ inboxes
• Customer onboarding: Email sequences help you gradually introduce product features without overwhelming them 
• B2B content: Share detailed case studies and product information that your prospects can read and reference on their own time

Overall

Email is best for direct sales, personalized nurturing, targeted offers, automated sequences, detailed product information, and converting leads into customers.

When to use social media marketing

Social media marketing is best when similar businesses in your space are seeing engagement, as it suggests there’s already an active audience looking for what you offer.

You can use social media for brand discovery and to build anticipation for product launches through teasers and live reveals. Your comment sections drive new customer engagement, becoming natural spaces for feedback and community discussions.

Nothing stops you from jumping into trending industry conversations to build authority in your field and attract new followers. Paid ads, influencers, and shoppable storefronts provide additional ways to drive sales and engagement.

Run quick polls, host Q&A sessions, and share customer content that proves others love your products to turn your social media pages into assets.

Overall

Social media is ideal for brand awareness, visual storytelling, real-time engagement, audience discovery, community building, trend participation, and quickly reaching broader audiences.

Email marketing vs. social media statistics

Check out these email marketing vs. social media marketing statistics for an overview of both opportunities:

Email marketing

• ROI: Email marketing’s average ROI is 36:1, with Omnisend users seeing a significantly higher 68:1 return
• ROI increase: 52% of marketing professionals reported doubling their return on investment in 2023 compared to 2022, while 5.7% saw 4x higher returns
• Automation performance: Email automation drove 37% of all email orders from 2% of total sends in 2024
• Automated email metrics: Automated emails had a 40.55% open rate, 12.99% click-to-open rate, and 1.76% conversion rate in 2024
• Open rate growth: Email open rates jumped 6% YoY, reaching 26.6% in 2024
• Click-to-purchase: One in three automated email clicks led to purchase vs. one in 18 for campaign emails
• Main objectives: Product awareness and promotions are the key objectives of email marketing campaigns, with 16% of respondents choosing them 

Social media

• Growth: US social commerce users reached 106.8M in 2023, projected to hit 118M by 2027, which translates to a 10.6% increase over the period
• Click-through rate (CTR): Social media advertising CTRs increased to 0.66% from 0.64% between the second quarters of 2023-24
• Platform visibility: Organic reach is declining, with Instagram posts reaching about about 4% of followers, while Facebook content reaches under 1%
• Sales conversion: Conversion rates differ by industry and location, with Instagram showing the highest conversion rate (44%) for travel purchases with UK users 
• Leading networks: Meta’s platforms (Facebook and Instagram) dominate, with 86% of marketers using Facebook for marketing purposes in 2024
• Most important benefits: 83% of marketers cite increased exposure as the leading benefit of social media marketing in 2024, followed by increased traffic at 73% and lead generation at 65%

How email marketing and social media work together

Email and social media are complementary marketing channels that enhance reach, engagement, and conversions together. Here are some of the ways you can combine them in your marketing and brand strategy:

Cross-channel list and follower building

• Add email signup forms directly on social media pages
• Ask email subscribers to share your brand on social media — home services website Thumbtack uses this tactic to grow its follower count:

• Run social media contests that capture email addresses
• Use social media influencers to drive newsletter signups

Content amplification

• Include social sharing buttons in all emails
• Use email to promote social media events and live sessions — online course provider Kajabi does just that for its live recaps:

• Share user-generated social content in emails
• Repurpose email content for social media posts

Content optimization

• Test email content on social first to gauge engagement
• A/B test two emails to find the best messaging for reuse on social media — you can easily create email split-tests with Omnisend:

• Use social polls to inform email campaign topics
• Track which social posts drive the most email signups

Advertising integration

• Import email lists to create Facebook custom audiences — Omnisend makes syncing your contacts to Facebook easy:

• Use email lists to create lookalike audiences for social ad targeting
• Retarget email subscribers with Facebook ads
• Drive social ad viewers to email signup landing pages

Engagement synergy

• Use email to notify subscribers about social media contests/events — scented candle retailer Snif does this well, inviting subscribers to drop an emoji on its latest Instagram post to enter:

• Create automated email triggers to work alongside social media posts
• Promote exclusive email content on social channels
• Use social media for real-time engagement while using email for nurturing

Conclusion

Email marketing nurtures leads and enhances customer experience with direct, personalized marketing, while social media enables user discovery and builds brand awareness. Together, they cover targeted points across the customer journey.

Integrate email’s high ROI with social media’s broad reach to exploit both channels’ strengths. For instance, a welcome email sequence can convert first-time buyers, while Instagram stories build product excitement. Cart abandonment emails recover lost sales, while Facebook comments gather real-time feedback and build trust. 

Look for opportunities to combine channels and measure the results to find winning strategies for your business. With Omnisend, you can automate high-ROI email campaigns and seamlessly connect them with your social media efforts for even better results.

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