Outdated Confidence: medium
Source found and quoted correctly, but old enough that the market has changed.
Safe rephrasing
A 2014 McKinsey article said email acquired nearly 40 times as many customers as Facebook and Twitter combined; it is pre-2014 data on organic social, so don't present it as current.
What the source says
E-mail remains a significantly more effective way to acquire customers than social media—nearly 40 times that of Facebook and Twitter combined (exhibit).
McKinsey & Company — Why marketers should keep sending you e-mails (Jan. 1, 2014)
- Commonly cited as
- "Email is 40x more effective than social media"
- True origin
- McKinsey & Company — Why marketers should keep sending you e-mails (Jan. 1, 2014)
- Type
- Stat check: A widely repeated statistic traced back to its origin.
- Year
- 2014
- Data as of
- Data from around 2013
- Last checked
- Method & sample
- McKinsey article (adapted from a 2013 Forbes piece) comparing customer-acquisition shares by channel; the underlying dataset is not described in the text.
- Drift between quote and source
- About customer acquisition only, not overall effectiveness
- Age: 2013 data, before paid social matured
- Organic social, not paid social ads
- Interest
- McKinsey sells marketing consulting.