12 March 2025
The Unfashionable Truth: Email Still Pays Better Than Almost Anything
12 March 2025
Amid the noise about AI agents and vanishing search traffic, let's talk about the channel nobody puts on a conference slide: email. Industry studies have, for years, consistently put email's return at roughly £35–£40 for every £1 spent — comfortably ahead of paid social and display advertising.
Why email quietly wins
- You own the list. Your social following belongs to a platform that can change the rules overnight. Your email list belongs to you. In a year when algorithms and search results are being rewritten by AI, owned channels are strategic assets.
- Permission beats interruption. Everyone on a well-run list asked to be there. That's a warmer audience than any ad can buy.
- It's measurable without mystery. Opens, clicks, replies, sales. No attribution séance required.
What good looks like in 2025
Send less, say more. One genuinely useful email a fortnight beats three promotional ones a week. Write like a person — the flood of obviously AI-generated newsletters has made a human voice instantly recognisable, and instantly preferred. And grow the list everywhere: your website, your invoices, your events, even your printed materials.
If your marketing budget conversation this year is entirely about AI tools and none of it is about your email list, you may be optimising the wrong end of the funnel.