Why You’re Constantly Seeing Ads for Things You Just Bought Online

Where ad tech goes awry.

It all started with my wedding dress.

I bought it on Modcloth. Not even a minute post-purchase, I started seeing ads for it around the web. Especially on Facebook.

Who the fuck needs to buy a second, exact same wedding dress right away?

Granted, it wasn’t marketed as a wedding dress — this was right before Modcloth released their wedding line — but it was a long, fancy, sequined champagne gown, the kind of piece that you really only need one of in a given six-week period. Which is about how long this dress internet-haunted me.

Everyone I know has a similar story about a big-ticket or one-time-only purchase that just never can say goodbye.


Aaron Shield, a college professor and my brother-in-law, bought a last-minute (no judgment) Valentine’s Day gift for his husband: an MVMT watch. Immediately after clicking the “Buy” button, Shield started seeing ads for it. “Everywhere,” he says. “Every website I went to. Social media. Facebook, Amazon, the New York Times, Politico. Basically, it was stalking me.” It’s May. He’s still seeing the ads.

Writer and world traveler Amna Shamim bought a North Face backpack in a store, a Dakine suitcase on Sierra Trading Post using Ebates, and a Longchamp handbag on the Bloomingdale’s website using Ebates, and immediately got hit with ads on sites like Facebook (“the most aggressive”), Amazon, Huffington Post, Forbes, and more. They began as soon as she started researching and didn’t let up for weeks post-purchase, “until I started browsing for something else they [could] put in front of my face ad nauseam,” she says. “Basically a few weeks at least.”

“I saw ads for a good three months after I bought a couch,” says Racked senior editor Alanna Okun. She bought it from West Elm, in the store, after extensive research. “It was only after I bought it that I started seeing ads for it all the time,” she says. “Why didn’t they know I’d bought it already?” Okun was actively shopping online for couch accoutrements — throw pillows, an ottoman, a coffee table. Why wouldn’t West Elm market those to her instead?

Okun puts a finer point on it: “It’s like an annoying ex who keeps texting you. I’m more aware of you, but it makes me want to ignore you even more.”

But WHY? Why must we live like this? Must we live like this?