Sounds like the ads are super effective then.

It has always struck me as odd that Amazon shows me ads for things I had searched for and didn't buy as though I didn't already know about those products. Seems they should perhaps show me what other people bought that searched for similar or the same products as myself.

There was some talk of this on HN a while back, where the marketing theory presented was that there is a noticeable increase in sales if the customer walks away from a sale but is then later reminded of the product they almost bought.

From my experience with retargeting it drives amazing lift in conversions. A lot of platforms allow you to do this dynamic ad placing where you show the recently added item in a cart, but not purchased.

Also, let's not forget that Amazon is obsessed with testing, I am sure they have troves of it to back up everything they are doing.

I walk away from purchases plenty of times not because I don't want to buy the thing I searched for, but because something more pressing comes up.

Reminding me about the thing I was about to buy is very likely to get me to buy it in those cases.