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And it works extremely well. That’s why, thanks to Amazon ads, I’ve bought 14 vacuums in the last two months.

Sigh.

I really wish the algorithms were smart enough to distinguish between things that you might rebuy frequently (bras are closer to this end) and things that you probably won’t buy again for a long time (like vacuums).

From my experience (engineer at ad retargeting company) the models used for retargeting are very advanced/optimized. They're shown repeatedly because the data suggests that it IS the optimal policy despite the reaction people have to it.

I wonder if they take into account that you made the purchase, or even know about it. If you consider that the only information they have is that you were looking for the product, but may or may not have bought one (or may have returned the one you bought), then their strategy starts making sense.