A facility for selecting targeted advertising messages for presentation with sets of media sequences forming playlists is described. The facility stores search queries that are used by a user to locate pre-existing playlists, to generate new playlists, or to modify existing playlists. Prior to the use of a stored playlist, or contemporaneously with the use of a stored playlist, the facility uses the stored search queries to select one or more advertising messages to be presented with the media sequences in the playlist. The advertising messages that are presented may be updated each time the playlist is accessed in order to remove advertising messages from expired campaigns, to remove advertising messages that are not having a desired marketing effect, or to add new advertising messages.