‘ Retargeting’ ads from Amazon don’t have to be annoying

There are several ways to avoid this problem, from going incognito to editing your search history

Q: Every time I look for something on Amazon, I get ads for the same product on every other site. How do I make that stop?

A: “Retargeting” — showing you ads for something you’ve looked for at some online store even as you visit other sites, in the hope that the reminder will persuade you to complete the purchase — is a common marketing practice. But Amazon’s outsized inventory and the time many of us spend there can make its retargeted ads more obvious and obnoxious than most.

You can avoid this problem by doing your online shopping in a private- browsing or incognitomode window. Also, you can tell Amazon to stop sending you ads based on your shopping habits. Visit amazon. com/ adprefs or log into your Amazon account in a browser, click on your username in the top right corner of the page, and then click on the “Your advertising preferences” link.

On that page, click the button next to “Do Not Personalize Ads from Amazon for this Internet Browser” and then click the “Submit” button. You may still see Amazon ads, but they won’t be keyed into recent queries and clicks. You will, however, have to repeat this on each browser you use for any Amazon shopping.

You can edit your own search history. Visit amazon. com/ gp/ history and click “Remove” under every product you wish to shove down the memory hole. Click the “Manage history” heading at the top right, and you can turn off the browsing- history feature or remove all your history. You also can do the history revision in Amazon’s mobile apps.

Amazon’s outsized inventory and the time many of us spend there can make its retargeted ads more obvious and obnoxious than most.