Home Depot's Retail Media Lead Prioritizes Suppliers as Major Focus
Rewritten!
Home Depot is shaking up the retail media world with a distinctive approach. Instead of jumping on the bandwagon of digital shelf space monetization like many retail giants, Melanie Babcock, Vice President of Orange Apron Media and Monetization at Home Depot, has crafted a platform emphasizing a often-overlooked stakeholder: the suppliers themselves.
"Usually the retailer concentrates solely on the customer and their experience," Babcock explains. "But the supplier's experience isn't necessarily the primary concern."
This perspective guided Orange Apron Media through a major tech overhaul last year and impacted everything from user interfaces to measurement standards. Of course, revenue generation is essential - just like any retail media network. But Home Depot's approach uniquely focuses on enhancing how brands interact with their advertising platform.
From Social Media Purse to Retail Media Network
Babcock didn't set out to build an advertising business. In 2018, while managing Home Depot's social media operations, she spotted an opportunity that would later transform into one of retail's most sophisticated media networks.
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"I pondered if our suppliers would pony up to retarget customers who'd abandoned their product pages," Babcock recalls. Starting with just ten suppliers, she developed a simple portal allowing brands to reach customers who'd viewed their products but hadn't purchased. "Amazingly, they were like, 'This works!'"
This creative idea to increase her social media budget quickly unveiled broader potential. At around the same time, another team within Home Depot was investigating on-site advertising with technology provider PromoteIQ, which later got acquired by Microsoft.
"Let's not have two different teams," Babcock suggested, advocating for combining initiatives. "We can't have an off-site ads team and an on-site ads team. That would be terrible."
Early recognition of the need for cohesion across advertising channels has since become a hallmark of Orange Apron Media's strategy. By 2020, after receiving support from Home Depot's leadership, including then-merchandising EVP and current CEO Ted Decker, the retail media initiative was formalized and accelerated.
Build vs Buy: Home Depot's Tech Stack
While many retailers guard their technology partnerships jealously, Babcock is refreshingly upfront about Home Depot's approach - and how it differs from other retail media networks.
Home Depot's early foray into retail media in 2018, well before the flurry of networks launched during and after the pandemic, gives the company an advantage. Many retailers are still struggling through the complex building years, focusing solely on basic functionality. By contrast, Orange Apron Media has matured to a sophisticated level, where technology becomes a genuine differentiator.
"We looked at our existing tech stack and didn't like the user experience," Babcock admitted of the company's recent review of the retail media buying experience. "A lot of us in retail media are former marketers and media buyers. If you stepped back and looked at that, you'd be like, 'This is clunky, and it's hard.'"
This honest assessment led to a strategic pivot. Instead of continuing with a completely licensed software-as-a-service model that limited customization, Home Depot took an unusual step and acquired technology from Pentaleap, a retail media ad tech provider.
"We needed to own the majority of our tech stack because it would then be designed to meet the standards of service expectations we have from our suppliers," Babcock explains. "I'd put it in the top five things that we did for our retail media network."
The acquisition represented a hybrid "buy-build" approach - acquiring foundational code that Home Depot's teams could then customize and expand. "It was a buy, and then we built on top of it," Babcock explains. "It just accelerated us."
Pentaleap is responsible for serving sponsored products within the ad stack, playing a crucial role by providing an optimization layer between the ad server and organic product listings. This technology ensures ads stay relevant to what customers are genuinely searching for and browsing, unlike traditional retail media ad servers that operate independently from organic product recommendations. By linking these previously siloed systems, Orange Apron Media can deliver more relevant ads that perform better for advertisers while enhancing the customer experience.
Bridging Onsite and Offsite Retail Media
Home Depot has since partnered with additional technology providers, including Vantage, which lent a hand in building Orange Apron - a unified interface for advertisers to manage both onsite and offsite advertising campaigns in one place. Combining previously separate ad channels was a priority for Babcock from the outset. Unlike many retail media networks that started with onsite capabilities before expanding to offsite media, Orange Apron Media developed both channels simultaneously.
"We needed a unified UI that was really one place to look at all those off-site on-site ad buys, and then all of the reporting in one space," Babcock notes. "I don't know of many retailers that offer that. I think some of your most advanced (RMNs) have it, but we're one of the few."
This approach seems particularly prescient given industry forecasts. According to eMarketer, US retail media off-site ad spending is expected to grow by 42.1% in 2025, more than twice the rate of on-site ad spending (15.3%). While many retail media networks are now scrambling to develop off-site capabilities as on-site inventory reaches saturation, Home Depot's early investment in both channels puts them ahead of this industry shift.
In October 2024, these efforts culminated in the rebranding to Orange Apron Media, with the later launch of Orange Apron as a comprehensive self-service platform that unifies campaign management across onsite and offsite channels.
Retail Media's Measurement Challenges
The retail media industry has grappled with measurement standardization since its inception, with brands often frustrated by inconsistent approaches across different retailers. Babcock acknowledges these challenges.
"I think we're in a critical moment for measurement," she says. Home Depot actively participates in industry standardization efforts through the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and Media Rating Council (MRC), but Babcock cautions against disregarding essential context.
Babcock points out that each retail media network functions within a unique retail environment. When industry discussions focus solely on standardization, she explains, they often overlook how brands might have completely different strategic objectives across different retail partners - especially in specialty retail categories like home improvement.
For example, a faucet manufacturer might have entirely different strategies for Home Depot versus a mass merchant. At Home Depot, the manufacturer might be launching an exclusive new color trend within their complete product catalog, while at another retailer, they're only offering their top ten best-selling products.
Comparing advertising performance metrics across these scenarios can lead to deceptive conclusions, Babcock warns. When a brand is testing a new product line or color trend in one retail environment, their return on ad spend (ROAS) might naturally be lower than in a channel where they're only promoting proven best-sellers. Different strategic objectives fundamentally change what should be judged "successful" performance.
Looking Ahead: Building for the Future
As retail media matures from its experimental phase to a core business function for retailers, Orange Apron Media's supplier-focused approach appears well-positioned to handle the challenges ahead.
Home Depot's investment in a proprietary tech stack signifies a long-term commitment to the space, granting the retailer flexibility to adapt as shopping behaviors and advertising technologies continue to evolve. The platform's unified interface serves as a foundation that can potentially accommodate future capabilities - with offsite media a logical next step.
"Our Orange Apron Media was designed for the service to our suppliers," Babcock concludes. In a retail media landscape increasingly populated with similar-looking offerings, that focus on the supplier experience may prove to be Home Depot's most valuable asset.
- Melanie Babcock, Vice President of Orange Apron Media and Monetization at Home Depot, has been mindful of retail stakeholders beyond customers, focusing on enhancing the relationship between brands and Home Depot's advertising platform.
- The collaboration between Home Depot's social media team and the on-site advertising team investigating PromoteIQ, later acquired by Microsoft, is an example of Babcock's early recognition of the need for cohesion across advertising channels at Home Depot.
- In 2024, Home Depot rebranded its retail media initiative to Orange Apron Media, with the later launch of Orange Apron as a comprehensive self-service platform that unifies campaign management across onsite and offsite channels, reflecting Home Depot's development of both onsite and offsite retail media channels simultaneously.
