LEAD SOURCES: S TIER TO D TIER

30 Sept 2026 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

1:22

In this solo YouTube commentary, Eric Siu ranks common marketing lead‑generation channels from S‑tier (the most valuable) down to D‑tier (least valuable) and explains the reasoning behind each placement. He declares email marketing and referrals as S‑tier, emphasizing the power of a clean, growing list and the compounding effect of high‑quality work that drives word‑of‑mouth. Paid media, AI‑enhanced organic (AEO), and webinars earn A‑tier status, with success tied to creative quality, high conversion rates from LLM‑driven discovery, and the ability to educate and sell within a live format. SEO is placed in C‑tier; while overall web traffic is declining, it remains a crucial piece of the puzzle because large language models still rely on SEO‑derived signals. Live events are generally B‑tier, but can drop to D‑tier if attendees gain no value; however, well‑executed live events that educate and foster community can become strong lead generators. Throughout, Siu adopts a conversational, instructional tone, expressing confidence in the rankings while acknowledging nuances, and encourages viewers to follow for more AI‑marketing insights.

Chapters

Live events are B tier. If you're attending a live event and you're not getting anything out of it, it's probably D tier. But if you are throwing a live event and you are actually trying to educate your audience, you're trying to connect people together, it can be very strong in terms of building a strong community and you can get leads that way. SEO would be C tier because SEO is actually declining, like website traffic is declining, but it's still actually very important because LLMs ground off of SEO. So even though SEO itself is not that strong, it's still important piece of the puzzle. Paid media would be A tier. The better your creative is, the better your offer is, the better you're going to do with paid media. AEO would be A tier because the people that find you on an LLM, they convert at a much higher rate. Webinars are A tier. Webinars are great because it's a great way to educate people and get them to buy. Especially if you're in a services business, if you can do a good webinar and have an offer in the middle, you're going to get more people to buy. Email marketing is S tier. If you have a strong email list and you're continually growing that list over time and you're cleaning that list over time, What happens is you are basically, you're basically ringing the register every time that you have an offer for your email list. It's extremely powerful even to this day. Referrals are S-tier. And the reason for that is because referrals, if you do really good work, it compounds over time. It's hard to come by, but once you do good work and that flywheel compounds, that's why it's S-tier. Follow for more on AI marketing and business.