Proprietary Data and Content That Attracts Links

Growth Newsletter: https://levelingup.beehiiv.com/subscribe Need marketing help? Visit: https://www.singlegrain.com/ and https://npdigital.com/ Want to recruit great marketers? Find them here: https://marketingschool.io/hire Neil and Eric react to Jensen Huang's bold claim that a $500K engineer should be spending $250K on AI tokens, and why the real answer involves open source. They break down how AI costs are exploding internally, why Cursor's $2B revenue run rate doubled in 3 months, and the rise of vertical AI models. The conversation also covers 7 SEO trends for 2026, how AEO audits expose major gaps, the Agentic Commerce Protocol changing checkout forever, and a live breakdown of IM8's $120M bundle strategy.

Key Takeaways:

• 70-80% of your AI usage should run on open source infrastructure.
• Sites that link to you are the easiest wins for GEO and SEO.
• AEO audits are exposing massive gaps most companies are ignoring.

Chapters: 00:00 Jensen Huang's $250K Token Claim 01:25 Open Source vs Paid AI Tokens 02:40 Eric's $5.6K Monthly Anthropic Spend 03:32 AI Costs Exploding Internally 04:05 Cursor's $2B Revenue & $40B Valuation 05:48 Vertical Models & Intercom's Finn 06:35 SEO Trends for 2026 08:42 Doing SEO via API 09:20 Brand Search Driving Rankings 09:48 AEO Audits With Oracle 10:30 Human-Written Content & E-A-T 11:23 Publishing Where Your Customers Aren't 12:32 Agentic Commerce Protocol & Stripe 15:22 IM8's $120M Checkout Breakdown 18:03 Legion Protein & Supplement Talk

𝗔𝗕𝗢𝗨𝗧 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗡𝗡𝗘𝗟 Welcome to Marketing School, one of the top business podcasts with over 61 million downloads. Each episode delivers actionable marketing tips and strategies from two entrepreneurs who truly practice what they preach. The show is hosted by Eric Siu, founder of Leveling Up and Single Grain, and Neil Patel, co-founder of Neil Patel Digital and recognized by Forbes as a Top 10 Marketer. 🎙️ Learn More About the Hosts Eric Siu – Leveling Up: https://www.youtube.com/@LevelingUpOfficial Neil Patel: https://www.youtube.com/@neilpatel 📩 Free Resources Ubersuggest: https://www.ubersuggest.com/ Answer The Public: https://www.answerthepublic.com/ ✅ Subscribe for Daily Marketing Insights!