• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer, Yesterday

Ace Hardware advertisers now have options to manage and run retail RedVest Media campaigns alongside Amazon, Walmart and other major retail media networks following an integration with a commerce network.

The partnership with Pacvue and integration through Epsilon gives brands a simpler way to activate, optimize, and measure campaigns. 

Epsilon Retail Media, CitrusAd is RedVest Media's onsite ad-serving platform. Pacvue receives an API from Epsilon.  

Ace Hardware’s platform can connect the reporting view with cross-retail dashboards to compare results and identify trends.

It can also reduce the burden of managing another retail media channel through an integrated campaign-management system that can connect brands to more than 70 million Ace loyalty members.

Through this system, brands can control multiple advertising channel formats including sponsored product ads targeting project-focused shoppers who are close to making a purchase decision, automated targeted email marketing and real-time mobile push notifications, and an extended reach across the open web through programmatic video, connected TV (CTV), display, and mobile web.

All are available now to RedVest Media advertisers as Pacvue has transitioned from a point-solution for search into something the company calls a "centralized commerce media operating system (OS)" that manages onsite retail media and offsite programmatic campaigns.

This is not an OS in the traditional sense, but is operating as a system that pulls together multiple ad channels. 

Advertisers across Ace Hardware's ecosystem are supported by multiple ad channels. The company has 5,200 locally owned-and-operated stores in the United States.

Fifty percent of Americans live within 3 miles of an Ace Hardware store and 75% live within a 15-minute drive, where they can shop for brand power tools, paint supplies, grills, lawn and garden products, and related categories.

Home improvement is a category where the shopper journey rarely starts and ends in one place, according to Ace Hardware analysis.

Brands are often managing media across national platforms while trying to maintain presence in the specialty retail environments where project-driven customers from lookers to purchasers.

Ace Hardware does not break out revenue numbers for Redvest Media, but in June the parent company reported a record $10 billion in total revenue for its full fiscal year. Ace tracked a 129% increase in net income year-over-year during the first quarter.

RedVest Media's underlying programmatic infrastructure and multichannel audience segment tools went through tests and brand trials for roughly 10 months leading up to the official July 2026 Pacvue platform integration.

The integration allows brands to manage campaigns running on acehardware.com and on the Ace Hardware app.

Ace's Ecommerce platform is a shared service for all of Ace's independently owned and operated businesses.

It is not clear whether the integration will one day include off-network ad targeting or OpenAI’s ChatGPT Ads platform.

Pacvue, an AI-powered commerce media operating system company, is among a small group of companies that are working with it to run advertisements.

NewStreet Research reported in June about 20% of ChatGPT’s conversations showed shopping intent. Analysts described ChatGPT’s ad setup as looking “broadly familiar” to retail media or paid search platforms.

A Pacvue spokesperson told MediaPost the tech company does have multiple AI offerings for clients, but not specifically with RedVest Media's integration into the Pacvue unified commerce ecosystem.