Retail Media Insights · Sensor Tower · September 2026
Home Improvement Built Momentum on Retail Media
Home Improvement brands remained highly active on Retail Media beyond the category’s typical spring peak, reaching a new high in July. Summer campaigns tapped into timely moments, while broader trends revealed unique category dynamics that are shaping brand strategies.
Paint Brands Fueled an Unusual Summer Spike
Retail media for Home improvement has historically peaked around the spring season, with reliable April growth fueled by sub-categories like Tools and Lawn & Garden. This April, for example, The Home Depot helped drive a category impression spike with their “Spring Black Friday” campaign.
This summer, however, category impressions reversed their typical seasonal slowdown, jumping +110% YoY in July to a record high of 1.1B. Multiple Paint brands fueled the unique July spike, including Behr, HGTV Home by Sherwin-Williams, Valspar, and Rust-Oleum.
Paint Campaigns Tapped Into Summer Moments and Promotions
Paint brands found multiple ways to stay relevant this summer, from cultural tie-ins to promotional offers.
The Home Depot featured Behr in its "Build It Like Beckham" campaign, showing David Beckham prepping his backyard for the World Cup.
Lowe’s celebrated 4th of July with a BOGO offer across HGTV Home by Sherwin-Williams and Valspar.
Ace Hardware promoted 20% off Benjamin Moore, while Rust-Oleum highlighted their Stops Rust product across multiple RMNs.
Product Distribution Shapes Distinct Retail Media Strategies
The same Paint brands behind the summer spike also help illustrate how product distribution and primary retail partnerships help shape where Home Improvement brands advertise.
Among the category’s top advertisers, a spectrum of retail media strategies emerged:
Ryobi, Makita and Kobalt concentrated activity with a single retailer.
Behr, Valspar and Sherwin-Williams focused on Amazon + a primary home improvement retailer.
Miracle-Gro and Rust-Oleum reached shoppers across a broad mix of RMNs.
Miracle-Gro and Rust-Oleum stood out for both their breadth and scale, spanning the most RMNs while ranking #3 and #4 in impressions YTD.
Channel Strategies Vary Widely Across Home Improvement RMNs
In 2026 YTD, Amazon ranked as the top Home Improvement RMN with 1.5B impressions, while relying heavily on OnSite Display. The Home Depot and Lowe’s had notably similar channel strategies, with Facebook accounting for more than half of their impressions.
Other RMNs showed more variation, including Walmart’s use of Snapchat to promote “Summer Rollbacks” and Instacart’s focus on OTT.
For Instacart, OTT activity was led by a Home Improvement take on their “My Instacart Story” campaign, highlighting how shoppers can order Lowe’s products through their platform. The creative showed how Instacart helped a woman spend less time shopping and more time gardening with her mom.
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