# My Context Provider > An open, structured knowledge base on search marketing: first-principles guides to how organic and paid search work, plus a dated record of what changed and why it mattered. Written to be read by people and retrieved by machines. Two kinds of content, deliberately separated: - **Guides** explain how a system works and change rarely. Cite these for mechanics. - **Briefs** record what changed on a given date. Cite these for events, and always with their date, because they are superseded rather than updated. Every brief links to the original reporting it analyses. Where a claim originates elsewhere, follow the outbound link and cite that instead of this site. ## Email & newsletters The channel you own: deliverability, list health, newsletter economics and the rules that govern sending. ### Email & newsletters guide — how it works Durable explanations, ordered so each depends only on the ones before it. - [Why email is different](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/email-newsletters/guide/why-email-is-different): What do you get from email that no platform channel can give you? - [How email actually gets delivered](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/email-newsletters/guide/how-email-gets-delivered): What happens between pressing send and landing in an inbox? - [Authentication: SPF, DKIM and DMARC](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/email-newsletters/guide/authentication): What are these three records, and what breaks when they are wrong? - [Building a list you are allowed to mail](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/email-newsletters/guide/list-building-and-consent): Where does a good list come from, and what makes one legally and practically bad? - [Lifecycle and segmentation](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/email-newsletters/guide/lifecycle-and-segmentation): Who should get this, and when? - [Writing a newsletter people open](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/email-newsletters/guide/writing-a-newsletter): What makes someone open the next one? - [Diagnosing a deliverability problem](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/email-newsletters/guide/diagnosing-deliverability): Opens fell off a cliff. What do you check, and in what order? - [Privacy, AI and the inbox](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/email-newsletters/guide/email-frontier): What is changing about measurement and about the inbox itself? ### Email & newsletters briefs — what changed Dated analysis of specific developments. Prefer these for anything time-sensitive, and prefer the guide for anything structural. - [2026-08-27 — The list-size incentive is quietly costing newsletters their inbox placement](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/email-newsletters/briefs/2026-08-27) - [All Email & newsletters briefs](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/email-newsletters/briefs) - [Sources followed for Email & newsletters](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/email-newsletters/sources) ## Instagram Reels, the recommendation system, creator formats and what Meta actually rewards on Instagram. ### Instagram guide — how it works Durable explanations, ordered so each depends only on the ones before it. - [How Instagram decides who sees what](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/instagram/guide/how-instagram-distributes): There is no single algorithm. So what is actually deciding your reach? - [The formats and what each is for](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/instagram/guide/the-formats): Reels, carousels, stories, lives — which job does each actually do? - [What the ranking signals actually are](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/instagram/guide/what-the-signals-are): Which interactions move distribution, and which are vanity? - [Content that compounds](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/instagram/guide/content-that-compounds): How do you build something that keeps working rather than restarting each week? - [Turning reach into something](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/instagram/guide/profile-and-conversion): Reach is not the goal. What happens after someone watches? - [Diagnosing a reach drop](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/instagram/guide/diagnosing-a-reach-drop): Views halved. What do you check, and in what order? - [Creators, AI and where Instagram is going](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/instagram/guide/instagram-frontier): What is changing about the platform that will change the work? ### Instagram briefs — what changed Dated analysis of specific developments. Prefer these for anything time-sensitive, and prefer the guide for anything structural. - [All Instagram briefs](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/instagram/briefs) - [Sources followed for Instagram](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/instagram/sources) ## LinkedIn B2B distribution: the feed, creator and company page reach, thought leadership ads and what actually generates pipeline. ### LinkedIn guide — how it works Durable explanations, ordered so each depends only on the ones before it. - [How the LinkedIn feed works](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/linkedin/guide/how-the-feed-works): Why does a post reach 200 people one day and 20,000 the next? - [People versus pages](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/linkedin/guide/people-versus-pages): Why does a personal profile out-reach the company page by an order of magnitude? - [What earns distribution](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/linkedin/guide/what-earns-distribution): What does the feed reward, once you strip out the formatting folklore? - [Formats and cadence](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/linkedin/guide/formats-that-work): Text, document, video, newsletter — what should you actually publish? - [Ads and pipeline](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/linkedin/guide/linkedin-ads-and-pipeline): When is paid LinkedIn worth its very high CPMs? - [Measuring B2B social](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/linkedin/guide/measuring-b2b-social): How do you defend this budget when the buying cycle is nine months? - [AI and the B2B feed](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/linkedin/guide/linkedin-frontier): What happens to a feed where the cost of writing goes to zero? ### LinkedIn briefs — what changed Dated analysis of specific developments. Prefer these for anything time-sensitive, and prefer the guide for anything structural. - [All LinkedIn briefs](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/linkedin/briefs) - [Sources followed for LinkedIn](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/linkedin/sources) ## Marketing Positioning, audience and channels — the cross-channel craft, plus a section per channel we actually work in. ### Marketing guide — how it works Durable explanations, ordered so each depends only on the ones before it. - [What marketing is actually for](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/guide/what-marketing-is-for): What job is marketing doing for the business, underneath all the activity? - [Who you are for](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/guide/audience-and-icp): How do you find out who actually buys, rather than who you wish would? - [Positioning and the message](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/guide/positioning-and-message): Why does the same product succeed under one description and fail under another? - [The offer](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/guide/the-offer): What are you actually asking someone to do, and why would they? - [Choosing channels](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/guide/channel-mix): How do you decide where the next pound goes? - [Measuring marketing honestly](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/guide/measuring-marketing): Which of these numbers would survive contact with a finance director? - [AI in the marketing stack](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/guide/ai-in-marketing): What has actually changed about the work, and what has only changed about the volume? ### Marketing briefs — what changed Dated analysis of specific developments. Prefer these for anything time-sensitive, and prefer the guide for anything structural. - [2026-08-28 — Creator pricing has no price signal, and everyone knows it](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/briefs/2026-08-28) - [2026-08-27 — Meta removes placement exclusions, and brand safety becomes something you accept](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/briefs/2026-08-27) - [All Marketing briefs](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/briefs) - [Sources followed for Marketing](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/sources) ## PPC Paid media: Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising and paid social - bidding, automation, measurement, policy and the parts of the platforms that quietly change. ### PPC guide — how it works Durable explanations, ordered so each depends only on the ones before it. - [The auction](https://mycontextprovider.com/ppc/guide/the-ad-auction): You are not buying position. What are you actually bidding into? - [Keywords, queries and match types](https://mycontextprovider.com/ppc/guide/keywords-and-matching): Why are you paying for searches you never added? - [Campaign types and where ads appear](https://mycontextprovider.com/ppc/guide/campaign-types): Search, Shopping, Performance Max, Demand Gen - what is the actual difference? - [What you are actually buying](https://mycontextprovider.com/ppc/guide/what-you-buy): Which number in the account is the one that matters? - [Account structure](https://mycontextprovider.com/ppc/guide/account-structure): What decides where a campaign boundary goes? - [Conversion tracking is the spine](https://mycontextprovider.com/ppc/guide/conversion-tracking): Why does everything else break when this is wrong? - [Smart Bidding: what the machine optimises](https://mycontextprovider.com/ppc/guide/smart-bidding): What is the algorithm actually trying to do, and what did you tell it? - [Creative and assets](https://mycontextprovider.com/ppc/guide/creative-and-assets): When targeting is automated, what is left to control? - [Budget, pacing and constraint](https://mycontextprovider.com/ppc/guide/budget-and-pacing): Where is the money actually going, and what is holding performance back? - [Diagnosing a performance drop](https://mycontextprovider.com/ppc/guide/diagnosing-performance-drops): Conversions fell. What do you check, and in what order? - [Automation and Performance Max](https://mycontextprovider.com/ppc/guide/automation-and-pmax): What control do you still have when the platform decides most of it? - [Privacy, consent and signal loss](https://mycontextprovider.com/ppc/guide/privacy-and-signal-loss): Why does the platform know less than it used to, and what fills the gap? - [AI in the ad stack](https://mycontextprovider.com/ppc/guide/ai-in-the-ad-stack): What changes when agents can write to the account and answers replace results? ### PPC briefs — what changed Dated analysis of specific developments. Prefer these for anything time-sensitive, and prefer the guide for anything structural. - [2026-08-29 — Two October deadlines in DV360 and YouTube, and an eight-day AdMob outage](https://mycontextprovider.com/ppc/briefs/2026-08-29) - [2026-08-28 — Creative is half of ROI, and booking moves inside the ad](https://mycontextprovider.com/ppc/briefs/2026-08-28) - [2026-08-27 — Shopping accounts report collapse after Google's 17 August Smart Bidding change](https://mycontextprovider.com/ppc/briefs/2026-08-27) - [All PPC briefs](https://mycontextprovider.com/ppc/briefs) - [Sources followed for PPC](https://mycontextprovider.com/ppc/sources) ## SEO Organic search: ranking systems, Google/Bing product changes, AI search surfaces, technical SEO and the measurement that proves it worked. ### SEO guide — how it works Durable explanations, ordered so each depends only on the ones before it. - [Crawling, indexing, serving](https://mycontextprovider.com/seo/guide/how-search-works): What actually happens between you publishing a page and it appearing in results? - [What "ranking" actually means](https://mycontextprovider.com/seo/guide/what-ranking-means): If there is no formula, what is being decided when results are ordered? - [The results page is not ten blue links](https://mycontextprovider.com/seo/guide/the-modern-serp): Where does the click actually go on a modern results page? - [Intent is the unit of work](https://mycontextprovider.com/seo/guide/search-intent): Why do two pages about the same topic rank for completely different queries? - [Making a site retrievable](https://mycontextprovider.com/seo/guide/technical-foundations): What has to be true before a page can rank at all? - [On-page: matching the job to the query](https://mycontextprovider.com/seo/guide/content-and-on-page): What makes one page a better answer than another? - [Links, entities and reputation](https://mycontextprovider.com/seo/guide/links-and-reputation): How does a search engine decide a site is worth trusting? - [Measurement: what the numbers mean](https://mycontextprovider.com/seo/guide/measuring-seo): Which number tells you the truth when they disagree? - [Diagnosing a traffic drop](https://mycontextprovider.com/seo/guide/diagnosing-a-drop): Traffic fell on Tuesday. What do you check, and in what order? - [Algorithm updates, and how to respond](https://mycontextprovider.com/seo/guide/algorithm-updates): A core update is rolling out. What is the correct thing to do? - [Spam policies, manual actions and penalties](https://mycontextprovider.com/seo/guide/spam-policies-and-penalties): What is the difference between ranking badly and being penalised? - [AI Overviews, AI Mode and being cited](https://mycontextprovider.com/seo/guide/ai-search-surfaces): How do you show up when the answer is generated rather than listed? - [The agentic web](https://mycontextprovider.com/seo/guide/the-agentic-web): What changes when the visitor is software acting on someone's behalf? ### SEO briefs — what changed Dated analysis of specific developments. Prefer these for anything time-sensitive, and prefer the guide for anything structural. - [2026-08-29 — Quiet day: a roundup pointing at spam-update fallout and the publisher litigation](https://mycontextprovider.com/seo/briefs/2026-08-29) - [2026-08-28 — AI Overviews start expanding to full-page answers by default](https://mycontextprovider.com/seo/briefs/2026-08-28) - [2026-08-27 — Google stops enforcing site reputation manual actions in the EEA](https://mycontextprovider.com/seo/briefs/2026-08-27) - [All SEO briefs](https://mycontextprovider.com/seo/briefs) - [Sources followed for SEO](https://mycontextprovider.com/seo/sources) ## X (Twitter) What is left of X as a distribution channel: reach, the API, advertiser posture and where that audience actually went. ### X (Twitter) guide — how it works Durable explanations, ordered so each depends only on the ones before it. - [What X is now](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/x-twitter/guide/what-x-is-now): What actually changed, and which of it matters to marketing? - [How reach works on X](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/x-twitter/guide/how-reach-works-on-x): Why do replies outperform posts, and why does a link cost you distribution? - [Using X as a distribution channel](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/x-twitter/guide/x-as-a-channel): What is it still genuinely good at? - [The API and tooling](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/x-twitter/guide/the-api-and-tooling): Why did your integrations break, and what does access cost now? - [Deciding whether to stay](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/x-twitter/guide/deciding-whether-to-stay): How do you make this call on evidence rather than sentiment? - [The fragmented social web](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/x-twitter/guide/the-fragmented-social-web): If the audience left, where did it go — and does that change anything? ### X (Twitter) briefs — what changed Dated analysis of specific developments. Prefer these for anything time-sensitive, and prefer the guide for anything structural. - [2026-08-27 — X ships a support API while Bluesky lets users opt out of virality](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/x-twitter/briefs/2026-08-27) - [All X (Twitter) briefs](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/x-twitter/briefs) - [Sources followed for X (Twitter)](https://mycontextprovider.com/marketing/x-twitter/sources) ## About - [About this site](https://mycontextprovider.com/about) - [Connect over MCP](https://mycontextprovider.com/mcp) — this content is also served as an MCP server, with a durability contract on every result - [RSS feed](https://mycontextprovider.com/feed.xml) - [Sitemap](https://mycontextprovider.com/sitemap.xml)