Trend report · Oct 2026

2026 Overseas Marketing Trends: 6 Shifts Cross-Border Brands Can’t Ignore

By the LEVERAFE LAB team · ~7 min read · 閱讀繁體中文版 →

Every year someone declares a "new era" of digital marketing. Most years, it's noise. But looking at the numbers published across 2025 and 2026 — from platform earnings calls to industry reports — a few shifts are big enough that any brand selling overseas should plan around them. Here are the six we're watching most closely with clients selling into the US, UK, Australia and Southeast Asia.

1. Social commerce has gone mainstream in the US

Buying directly from a social feed is no longer an experiment. EMARKETER forecasts that US social commerce sales will pass $100 billion in 2026^[1]. TikTok Shop is the standout: its US e-commerce sales are projected to reach $23.41 billion in 2026, up 48% year over year^[2], and EMARKETER expects 51% of US social buyers to shop on TikTok this year^[3].

The same EMARKETER analysis is a useful reality check, though: TikTok's ownership saga showed the risk of depending on a single platform, and Instagram and Facebook haven't matched TikTok Shop's commerce momentum^[2]. The lesson isn't "go all-in on TikTok" — it's "be shoppable wherever discovery happens, and keep your own store and email list strong."

2. Meta's ad system is now run by AI — your inputs matter more than your settings

On its Q3 2025 earnings call, Meta said the annual revenue run-rate flowing through its end-to-end AI-powered ad tools (Advantage+) had passed $60 billion. Advertisers running sales, app or lead campaigns now have end-to-end automation turned on from the start, and Meta reported that Advantage+ lead campaigns see a 14% lower cost per lead on average. The number of advertisers using at least one of its video-generation features grew 20% versus the prior quarter^[4].

In practice this means the old craft of hand-building audiences matters less. What wins is the quality and variety of creative you feed the system, clean conversion data (pixel plus Conversions API), and clear business signals like margins and offer structure.

3. Google Search is changing shape with AI Overviews and AI Mode

Alphabet reported in Q3 2025 that AI Overviews had scaled to over 2 billion users, while AI Mode — rolled out globally across 40 languages — had over 75 million daily active users. Google says these features are driving growth in overall and commercial queries, and that AI Max for Search is already used by hundreds of thousands of advertisers. On YouTube, Demand Gen improvements raised conversion value by more than 40% for advertisers using target-based bidding^[5].

For cross-border brands, this makes two things more important: product feeds and landing pages that clearly answer real questions (price, shipping, returns, sizing), and search campaigns built to let Google's AI match broader, more conversational queries — with tight guardrails on brand and negative terms.

4. Creators are a channel, not a side tactic

The IAB estimates US creator economy ad spend at $37 billion in 2025, up 26% — roughly four times faster than the media industry overall — and expects it to reach about $44 billion in 2026. Nearly half (48%) of buyers now call creators a "must buy," behind only paid search and social^[6]. The same research found three in four brands use or plan to use AI for creator-marketing tasks^[9].

US creator economy ad spend, $ billions

2021

$13.9B

2024

$29.5B

2025

$37.0B

2026 (proj.)

$43.9B

Source: IAB 2025 Creator Economy Ad Spend & Strategy Report ^[6]^[9]

The brands we see winning treat creator content as an ads input: secure usage rights up front, run the best-performing creator videos as paid ads (Partnership Ads, Spark Ads), and measure them against the same ROAS targets as any other creative.

5. Southeast Asia: video commerce is a quarter of the market

According to the e-Conomy SEA 2025 report by Google, Temasek and Bain, e-commerce GMV across the region is projected to reach $185 billion in 2025, and video commerce now accounts for about 25% of e-commerce GMV — fuelled by lots of lower-value orders, trusted local creators, and smooth social-to-checkout flows^[7].

If SEA is on your roadmap, plan for live and short-video selling with local-language creators from day one, rather than porting over a Western-style search-first plan.

6. Australia: bigger online spend, more price-conscious shoppers

Australia Post's eCommerce Report 2026 says Australians spent a record A$82.6 billion online in 2025, up 14%, but the average basket shrank to about $96. 60% of Australian shoppers use social media for product discovery and one in two have bought something after seeing it on social. Pure marketplaces took $18.9 billion, or 23% of online spend^[8].

The same report flags "agentic commerce" — AI assistants that compare and buy for the shopper — as an emerging channel, and recommends making product information machine-readable: availability, price, delivery times and returns stated clearly^[8].

What this means for brands

Creative is the new targeting. With Meta and Google automating delivery, budget a steady pipeline of fresh videos — especially creator-made ones — and test them every week.
Fix your data foundation. Server-side conversion tracking, clean product feeds and clear landing pages make every AI system work better for you.
Go local, not just global. SEA rewards video and live commerce; Australia rewards value and delivery clarity; the US rewards being shoppable on social.
Don't rent your whole business. Use TikTok Shop and marketplaces for reach, but build your own store, email/CRM and repeat-purchase engine.

None of these shifts require a huge budget to act on — they require focus. If you're planning your 2026–2027 expansion and want a second pair of eyes on your channel mix, our team would be glad to help.