Method and system for dynamic textual ad distribution via email

A computer-implemented method comprising:

• providing an email message including a network-based locator of a first advertisement to a user device at a first time;
• after providing the email message to the user device, determining that advertisement rankings for a plurality of advertisements have changed since the first time that the email message was provided to the user device;
• in response to determining that the advertisement rankings for the plurality of advertisements have changed since the first time that the email message was provided to the user device, identifying a highest-ranking second advertisement of the plurality of advertisements that is different from the first advertisement;
• and
• upon receiving an indication of the email message being accessed, providing the second advertisement for inclusion in the email message instead of the first advertisement.

A system comprising:

• one or more computers and one or more storage devices storing instructions that are operable, when executed by the one or more computers, to cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising:
• providing an email message including a network-based locator of a first advertisement to a user device at a first time;
• after providing the email message to the user device, determining that advertisement rankings for a plurality of advertisements have changed since the first time that the email message was provided to the user device;
• in response to determining that the advertisement rankings for the plurality of advertisements have changed since the first time that the email message was provided to the user device, identifying a highest-ranking second advertisement of the plurality of advertisements that is different from the first advertisement;
• and
• upon receiving an indication of the email message being accessed, providing the second advertisement for inclusion in the email message instead of the first advertisement.

A computer program product, encoded on one or more non-transitory computer storage media, comprising instructions that when executed by one or more computers cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising:

• providing an email message including a network-based locator of a first advertisement to a user device at a first time;
• after providing the email message to the user device, determining that advertisement rankings for a plurality of advertisements have changed since the first time that the email message was provided to the user device;
• in response to determining that the advertisement rankings for the plurality of advertisements have changed since the first time that the email message was provided to the user device, identifying a highest-ranking second advertisement of the plurality of advertisements that is different from the first advertisement;
• and
• upon receiving an indication of the email message being accessed, providing the second advertisement for inclusion in the email message instead of the first advertisement.