Home Depot retail media boosts non-endemic ads

Orange Apron Media, the retail media network for The Home Depot, unified its on-site and off-site advertising systems in October 2024 — and the move is already paying off through partnerships with Reddit, Pinterest’s Media Network Connect, Yahoo and The Trade Desk.

Before the change, the retailer ran its two advertising businesses on separate systems.

That setup was the catalyst for the investment, according to Cattonar.

She told the outlet that Home Depot now uses its unified data sources throughout the advertising process. The first-party data — collected from its ecommerce operation, loyalty program and other channels — powers audience targeting for both on-site and off-site ads.

It enables two kinds of advertisers: those who sell products through Home Depot, and those who don’t, to reach the retailer’s customers with precision, she said. Unifying the systems also gives advertisers “the ease of orchestrating” their media, she added. The company wanted to eliminate the need for separate logins and multiple platforms.

“We wanted it to be something that was truly unified and seamless and, most importantly, useful,” she said.

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Endemic and non-endemic advertising through the same system

Brands that sell their products at Home Depot and use the network are endemic advertisers. Those who don’t sell through the retailer but still want to reach its customers are non-endemic.

Both use the same platform, Orange Access, but the reporting differs.

Endemic advertisers see a curated dashboard tied to the SKUs they promote — how those products perform online and in stores. Non-endemic advertisers get traditional media metrics instead of business performance data.

“There’s just a different flavor of reporting,” said Cattonar. “We do our best to support our non-endemic in ways around how best to enable whatever specific type of reporting that they may want to curate on their end.”

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Its internal associates use the same system for managed service activities. The network offers both managed services — where its team handles the ads — and a self-service option that lets advertisers make changes on their own timetable.

“What that creates is speed and access when it’s on a supplier’s own timetable,” Cattonar said.

The company also uses that same data set in its own marketing efforts. The company ranks No. 4 in the Top 2000 Database, which tracks North America’s largest online retailers by annual ecommerce sales.

It is the top-ranked retailer in the Hardware & Home Improvement category.

How Reddit fits into the advertising mix

The company and Reddit partnered so the network’s advertisers can place ads directly on the social platform. Advertisers create visuals using the network, post them to Reddit, and monitor the metrics from there.

By connecting audience data, Reddit and the company let suppliers reach customers outside of HomeDepot.com. The senior director called Reddit “an integral part of the customer journey” — a trusted platform for discovery and decision-making.

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“Reddit and Home Depot brilliantly align in terms of the way that we see our ability to be radically helpful to our customers, especially as it pertains to embarking on projects that may have a lot of unknowns,” she said.

This falls under the self-service offerings. Advertisers select a Home Depot audience, choose creatives and ad formats, and the company syndicates the ads to Reddit. Then within Orange Access, the system measures closed-loop performance so suppliers can understand how Reddit drives overall marketing effectiveness.

A multi-partner approach for scale

Cattonar said The Trade Desk and Yahoo “offer tremendous scale” for Home Depot. The partnerships help refine how non-endemic advertisers reach Home Depot customers. She called working with them “a natural progression.”

“And then when you think about that it’s a natural progression to start thinking about it from the lens of social,” she said. Pinterest, with its strength in inspiration and conversion, was “a natural extension.”

She described the partnerships as enabling “a true omnichannel strategy” — reaching each part of the marketing funnel with as much scale as possible. Each platform brings different demographics.

“We want to be where our customers are,” Cattonar said. “And we know that our customers can be across so many different areas across the internet.”