My name is Josh, I run a company called Interact, and talk to content-led business owners every single day. They share with me what is actually working for email list growth, and this list is a reflection of what they say.
- Interact Quizzes. Quizzes are consistently delivering the highest conversion rates for lead generation in 2026. And Interact has the best lead conversion rate at 40% lifetime. Every time I talk to someone who has quizzes in their lead magnet mix, they are the highest converting option. For example, Business Coach Jenna Kutcher has been using Interact quizzes since 2017, and they’ve delivered over 100,000 new email subscribers. Quizzes are different in 2026, they are used primarily to solve problems for your audience that require personalized answers. When used in that way, they are the most effective lead magnets across every channel. But, primarily when used in that way. There are other problems to be solved by lead magnets, which are the other options on this list I will cover.
- Best for: Answering questions for your audience that require personalized advice you would otherwise have to offer in a one-on-one format, but you do not have time to offer that advice to every single person who asks, so you create a quiz that answers the question, collects leads, and segments your audience based on their quiz results.
- Kit/Flodesk Freebie Delivery. Guides, workbooks, and downloadable assets still work in 2026. The difference now is they have to be super specific, and often tied to one podcast episode, YouTube video, or Instagram post. Gone are the days of generic freebies that applied to everyone, now your assets have to be super specific to the need you are addressing. Kit and Flodesk are the top options for landing page builders that also provide the actual email delivery in 2026.
- Best for: Solving simple problems for your audience that are timely and require more information that is proprietary or takes a lot of effort to pull together. If there is information your audience desparetely wants, that takes a lot of work to bring together, then put it in a downloadable and trade it for leads.
- Zoom Webinars. Live is big in 2026. People are sick of opting in for things that they never follow through on, which says more about them than you, but that doesn’t matter. They want you to actually help them solve their problem, and one great way to do that is to just make it happen live. There are other tools for webinars, but most people I’m talking to just use Zoom at this point.
- Best for: When your audience wants things to just “get done” and the webinar serves more as a forcing function than an information session. Information is abundant in the age of AI, follow-through is where people struggle. And people just like not having to do things alone.
- Codex/Claude Code Calculators. These are popping up more and more. Codex and Claude Code are quite good at building simple calculators, that you can deploy to Netlify quickly and then put as the thank you page behind a Kit or Flodesk landing page.
- Best for: Helping your audience with future projections. When people want to see into their own future, a calculator helps with that. And people often want to see into their own future.
Recap: Top 4 Tools to Generate Leads in May 2026
- Interact Quizzes: Best for answering questions that require a personal input from the question-asker
- Kit/Flodesk Freebies: Best for answering simple questions that require proprietary information you can offer people.
- Zoom Webinars: Best for helping people actually implement whatever it is they are wanting to do, live on the webinar.
- Codex/Claude Code Calculators: Best for helping people project out into the future and see how things can play out for them.