Amazon Ads Releases 2026 Global Marketing Trends Report: AI Becomes Key to Advertising Strategy, Omnichannel Synergy Amplified

Amazon Ads has released its 2026 Global Marketing Trends Insights, highlighting five key trends that are reshaping brand marketing strategies and advertising operations.

Trend 1: AI becomes the key engine for advertising strategy and creative.

AI tools can help advertisers identify relevant audiences by analyzing vast amounts of audience insights from campaigns, providing pattern analysis and continuous optimization suggestions to achieve measurable marketing outcomes. Marketers can complete tasks that previously required significant investment and weeks of manual work in just hours under human supervision, freeing up more resources for strategic planning to create greater value. With the evolution of Agentic AI, marketers can access advanced analytics through natural language, enabling faster and more efficient execution of complex campaign analysis.

Trend 2: Streaming TV ad buying will be business outcome-oriented.

By 2026, advertisers will increasingly measure the success of their streaming TV campaigns based on business outcomes such as sales, registrations, and bookings, moving beyond traditional metrics like reach, frequency, and brand favorability.

Amazon Ads research shows that when viewers watch streaming TV and can interact with ads—whether by adding items to a cart, exploring products, or requesting more information—they remember the content better and are more likely to take action. Research indicates that 79% of video viewers find interactive ads more engaging than standard video ads, and they appreciate the ability to check prices, discover offers, or save products for later purchase without leaving the content they are watching.

Interactive ads also deliver measurable impact: for brands selling on Amazon, interactive ads drove a 3-4% lift in brand favorability, consideration, purchase intent, and recommendation likelihood compared to standard ads. Even for brands without direct purchase options, interactive ads boosted brand favorability by 4%.

Trend 3: Creative moves towards personalization and scalability, with creator value increasingly prominent.

The 'creator economy' has become a vital part of today's purchase journey. By 2026, advertising spending in the US creator economy is projected to grow to $43.9 billion, an 18% increase from the previous year.

Trend 4: The synergistic effects of omnichannel advertising planning and measurement will continue to amplify.

Whether watching streaming TV, browsing social media, or shopping online, users expect a unified and seamless experience.

Trend 5: Cross-border marketing evolves towards smarter and more localized collaboration.

As media environments and consumer behaviors continue to vary across countries, global brands are shifting towards more intelligent, localized multi-market collaborative marketing. Brands are accelerating their multi-market marketing capabilities by leveraging technologies like AI and big data analytics to overcome time zone barriers, capturing cultural preferences, media usage habits, and consumer trends in different countries and regions in real-time. This enables the development of more targeted marketing strategies and the creation of more resonant ad creatives, while simultaneously improving the efficiency of cross-border marketing efforts.