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More people read newsletters every week than use Facebook

Social media reach fluctuates, and the algorithm decides it. In five charts, I show why a newsletter is more reliable for small businesses, which open rate is realistic and how to get started.

Sep 14, 2026 · 3 min read
by Martin Reza Tschapke
A smartphone showing an inbox on a wooden table, next to a cup of cappuccino

A post on Instagram feels like a message to everyone who follows you. In reality, only a small share sees it, and the algorithm decides which share. A newsletter lands in the inbox of every person who signed up.

This isn’t a case against social media. But it’s worth knowing on which channel you decide who you reach.

Email is part of everyday life for most people

According to the ARD/ZDF media study 2026, 76 % of people in Germany aged 14 and over read and write emails at least once a week. 35 % read newsletters every week. That’s more than use Facebook (28 %) and more than four times as many as use LinkedIn (8 %).

Bar chart: what people in Germany use at least once a week. Search engines 84 percent, email 76, social media overall 61, Instagram 40, newsletters 35, Facebook 28, TikTok 18, LinkedIn 8 percent.
Use at least once a week, people aged 14 and over in Germany, 2026.

The gap grows with age. According to Eurostat, 91 % of 16 to 24-year-olds in Germany use email and 85 % social networks. Among 55 to 64-year-olds, it’s 85 and 42 %, among 65 to 74-year-olds 73 and 25 %. If you want to reach customers over 45, there’s hardly a way around email.

Gap chart by age: use of email and social networks in Germany 2025. 16 to 24 years 91 vs. 85 percent, 25 to 34 years 94 vs. 81, 35 to 44 years 94 vs. 72, 45 to 54 years 91 vs. 59, 55 to 64 years 85 vs. 42, 65 to 74 years 73 vs. 25 percent.
Use in the last three months, people aged 16 to 74, 2025.

On social media, only a fraction sees your post

How many people a post reaches is measured, among others, by the analytics provider Socialinsider across millions of brand posts worldwide. For small Instagram accounts with 1,000 to 5,000 followers, reach per post averages 6.65 % of the follower count, on Facebook 4.35 %. The bigger the account, the smaller the share.

Two bar charts: reach per post as a percentage of followers by account size. Instagram from 6.65 percent at 1,000 to 5,000 followers down to 3.5 percent at 100,000 to 1 million. Facebook from 4.35 down to 0.5 percent.
Reach per post divided by the number of followers. Reach can also include people who don’t follow.

On top of that, reach fluctuates. According to an analysis by the provider Metricool, reach per Instagram post fell by 31 % in 2025, for Reels by 35 %, while it rose by 51 % on Facebook. That wasn’t decided by the people posting.

The feed belongs less and less to the accounts people follow

Meta itself publishes where posts in the Facebook feed in the US come from. In early 2024, 60 % of views came from friends, groups and pages people follow. Two years later, it’s just under half, while the share of recommended content rose from 27 to 37 %. On Instagram, according to Mark Zuckerberg, more than half of the content shown was already recommended by AI in 2024.

Line chart: sources of views in the Facebook feed in the US from early 2024 to mid 2026. Content from connections falls from 60.2 to 49.6 percent, recommended content rises from 26.7 to 36.6 percent.
Share of views in the Facebook feed in the US by source. The rest comes from other sources.

For businesses, that means people who follow you today won’t automatically see what you post tomorrow. Social media stays good for being found. For staying in touch with people who already know you, your own list is more reliable.

Which open rate is realistic

That leaves the question of how many people actually open a newsletter. The answer depends on how you count. Since 2021, Apple Mail preloads content in the background, even if nobody reads the email. That pushes measured open rates up.

Bar chart: newsletter open rates according to different benchmarks. Without the Apple effect 23.6 percent, median in German-speaking countries 24.1 percent, other averages 31.75 to 36.07 percent.
Benchmarks from newsletter providers with different methods. Averages and medians aren’t directly comparable.

Without this effect, realistic open rates are around 24 %. The click rate tells you more: depending on the provider, it’s 3 to 5 %. Keep an eye on it and you’ll see whether your newsletter is really being read.

An example from my work

For VANSOL, a newsletter goes out to 7,902 contacts every week, together with an Instagram carousel on the same topic. Social media makes sure new people discover the brand. The newsletter makes sure they don’t forget it again.

Where to start

  1. A sign-up with double opt-in. In Germany, email advertising requires explicit consent. The German data protection authorities consider double opt-in necessary: after signing up, the person confirms their address with a click in an email.
  2. A reason to sign up. Nobody subscribes to “news”. A concrete benefit helps, such as seasonal tips, dates for workshops or an offer just for subscribers.
  3. A fixed rhythm. Better once a month and reliable than every week with gaps. And keep pointing people from social media to your sign-up.

I set up newsletter tools, sign-up flows and templates, and write the issues if you like: email marketing. To make social media and your newsletter work together: social media & content. If you want to know what that could look like for you, get in touch.

Sources

  1. ARD/ZDF research commission (2026): ARD/ZDF-Medienstudie 2026, core presentation (in German). Fieldwork GIM, 2,462 respondents aged 14 and over. media-perspektiven.de
  2. Eurostat (2026): Individuals, internet activities (isoc_ci_ac_i), Germany 2025. ec.europa.eu/eurostat
  3. Socialinsider (2026): Social Media Reach. Analysis of brand accounts with 1,000 to 1 million followers (provider study). socialinsider.io
  4. Metricool (2025): Social Media Study 2026, press release of 10 December 2025 (provider study). metricool.com
  5. Meta: Widely Viewed Content Report, Facebook feed US, quarters 2024 to 2026. transparency.meta.com
  6. Meta (2024): Q1 2024 earnings call transcript. investor.atmeta.com
  7. Apple: Mail Privacy Protection. apple.com
  8. Benchmarks (providers): dialog-Mail (2022), effects of Apple Mail Privacy Protection (in German), pressetext.com; Inxmail email marketing benchmark 2026 as reported by markt-kom.com; eworx Benchmark Report 2025; Mailchimp, mailchimp.com; Brevo marketing benchmark 2025 (in German), brevo.com
  9. German Act against Unfair Competition (UWG), section 7 (in German). gesetze-im-internet.de
  10. Datenschutzkonferenz (2022): guidance on processing personal data for direct marketing (in German). datenschutzkonferenz-online.de

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