It does well because the probability of you buying a windmill multiplied by profit per sale is still more valuable than something non targeted like tampons (some of the advertisers get the numbers wrong but not the ones at scale.)

Interestingly, from the CPMs I've seen re-targeted/re-marketed ads perform on par or below contextually targeted ads. No one even comes close to Google for contextually targeted ad inventory (unless you are operating in a narrow niche and you are selling inventory directly, but lots of time and money to even match them.)