Home Depot expands retail media with new partnerships, Academy certification

Orange Apron Media is moving deeper into the store, with Home Depot adding new partnerships, onsite offerings and a certification program that could change what associates and managers have to support on the floor.

Home Depot said its third annual InFronts event took place on April 22, 2026, and that the announcements included new onsite products plus the Orange Apron Media Academy, a certification program set to launch later in 2026. For store teams, the immediate issue is not just who buys the ads. It is what happens when a supplier uses Home Depot’s media network to pull more shoppers toward a product before they ever reach the aisle.

Home Depot says Orange Apron Media now gives advertisers visibility into 198 million individual customers and offers both self-service and custom advertising capabilities. The company’s Orange Access platform, launched on October 3, 2024, lets advertisers plan, activate, optimize and report campaigns in one place. Home Depot said the system supports onsite and offsite campaigns, real-time pacing, media diagnostics and key metrics that include single-platform attribution and in-store sales for onsite ads. The company built Orange Access with Pentaleap and Kevel.

That matters on the ground because retail media changes the tempo of the store. If a promoted item draws more traffic, department leads have to keep inventory, endcaps, signage and fulfillment tight, or the promise made online can break down at the shelf. In home improvement, where a shopper may be trying to finish a roof repair, a flooring project or a contractor pickup, a missing item can slow down a job, frustrate the customer and create extra work for associates already juggling freight, service desk issues and pro orders.

Orange Apron Media started in 2018 with just ten suppliers, according to a March 2025 Forbes profile of Melanie Babcock, who has led the business. Home Depot later formalized and accelerated the effort in 2020 with leadership support from then-merchandising executive and current chief executive Ted Decker. The new Academy looks like the next step in that push, aimed at helping advertisers use the platform more effectively while Home Depot packages the network as more than a side business.

The retailer has been widening the same digital pipeline around it. In December 2025, Home Depot launched a creator portal to connect influencers with home improvement audiences, and in January 2026 it expanded its partnership with Google Cloud with agentic AI tools for homeowners and pros. Taken together, the moves show a company trying to shape demand earlier in the project cycle, which makes store execution more important, not less. When media drives the shopper to the aisle, the store has to deliver the item, the sign and the pickup speed that the campaign implied.