Marketing leaders are reallocating spending toward social, prioritizing user engagement, and reducing focus on traditional SEO tactics. The shift reflects marketers’ desire for speed, flexibility, and clear ROI signals. But it also shows the growing need to balance long-term brand building with short-term, engagement-driven wins. Brands should rebalance—not replace—channel mix by defining engagement benchmarks and KPIs that tie directly to brand lift, evaluating influencer impact beyond vanity metrics, and protecting core SEO efforts that support long-term discoverability.

The heat on Temu parent PDD Holdings is growing, at home and abroad. The company is being investigated by China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) over reports of fraudulent deliveries, per Bloomberg, while Temu’s Dublin headquarters were raided last week by the EU over concerns that the company breached foreign subsidy rules. PDD is losing goodwill in many of the markets it operates in—including in China, its most important. Employees reportedly got into fistfights with SAMR investigators at the company’s Shanghai offices, leading to multiple arrests. Such confrontations are highly unlikely to endear PDD to the powerful regulator, which has the ability to instigate sweeping probes into the company’s business practices.

Australia has enacted the world’s first nationwide ban on social-media accounts for anyone under 16, forcing platforms like TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat to remove underage users or face major penalties. Policymakers and researchers will study the effects on mental health, offline behavior, and migration to unregulated platforms—insights that could influence US policy, where similar proposals are already gaining traction. For advertisers, the implications are significant: removing millions of teen users would constrict future reach curves, shift youth attention toward gaming-adjacent spaces, raise competition for compliant inventory, and complicate early brand-building. Australia’s experiment may foreshadow US market disruption.

LG Ad Solutions and Taboola are attacking connected TV (CTV) advertising’s biggest pain point: proving what premium TV exposure actually does. Their new Performance Enhancer tool connects LG’s audience data with Taboola’s Realize performance engine and open-web inventory, giving advertisers a single, global view of ROI from first impression to conversion, per Yahoo. Advertisers should pilot unified CTV-to-digital measurement now to boost ad inventory opportunities. Use automatic content recognition (ACR) segments to retarget high-intent viewers, and push partners for cross-channel reconciliation, tying ad spend to outcomes—not impressions.

Shein and Temu are under intensifying global scrutiny as US, European, and Chinese authorities tighten oversight of Chinese-affiliated ecommerce platforms. Texas is investigating Shein over forced labor and safety concerns, while Sen. Tom Cotton is urging a federal probe into IP theft at both companies. The pressure extends abroad, with Shein’s French marketplace suspended and China demanding sales data to combat tax evasion. With de minimis advantages eroding and consumer trust wavering, these platforms must strengthen marketplace quality and local partnerships to remain competitive amid rising regulatory risk.

Shifts in what consumers watch, how they search, and where they shop are reshaping Latin America’s digital economy—and how brands will reach audiences in 2026. Explore the five trends to watch in the year ahead.

US startups are rapidly adopting Chinese open-weight AI models to cut costs, ship features faster, and keep data on-device—putting pressure on closed, pay-per-user systems from OpenAI and Google, per NBC News. Free, customizable models lower the barrier for early-stage builders, letting brands and teams experiment with AI tools at a fraction of traditional subscription costs. The next wave of AI-development will come from teams mixing closed systems with fast, inexpensive open models—many of them from China. This hybrid approach lets marketers test ideas quickly, tailor models to their data, and drive down cost per interaction.

Holiday shoppers in Asia-Pacific are decisively digital-first, with online intent outpacing in-store browsing throughout the region. However, there are notable variations in consumer behaviors across markets.

Baidu posted its sharpest revenue decline on record, with ad revenues falling 18% as AI-generated answers replace traditional search clicks. Ernie Bot now powers responses on most Baidu queries, improving user experience but suppressing monetizable activity—a trend management says will weigh on results into Q4. Competitors like Tencent, ByteDance, and PDD are still growing 20% to 30% YoY, suggesting Baidu’s weakness is structural. While the US market is more diversified, Baidu offers a stress test: AI can reshape search faster than monetization evolves. For advertisers, it’s a reminder that even Google and Microsoft must balance innovation with economic stability.

China’s Singles’ Day has lost much of its hype and enthusiasm. As the curtain falls on this year’s festival, now a five-week event, value-driven consumers and global ambitions have redefined the world’s largest online shopping event.

GenAI adoption in Asia-Pacific is outpacing the rest of the world. The region’s soft power is expanding quickly, highlighted by K-pop’s unstoppable global rise and China’s AI push bringing humanoid robots to daily life.

Australia’s ban on social media accounts for under-16s, which will take effect on December 10, is the clearest signal yet that the youth web is being rebuilt. Under the new rules, platforms will be compelled to block or remove minors or face fines up to AUD 49.5 million ($32.6 million)—a world first that other governments are watching closely, per The BBC. Brands will need to future-proof their playbooks by looking at alternatives like connected TV (CTV), offline events and sponsorships, and other privacy-safe campaigns.

28% of B2B buyers worldwide have AI review boards or steering committees review AI products during evaluation, making it the least common internal review method, according to a July 2025 Responsive survey.

Less than 3% of consumers in India recall digital ads they see despite spending an average of 2.17 hours daily consuming videos on mobile devices, per a report from RK Swamy Centre for Study of Indian Markets. Digital advertising is an essential part of a well-rounded campaign strategy in the digital-first era. But with ad effectiveness low, advertisers must carefully tailor strategies to drive the best outcomes.

Global ecommerce is tightening as major markets close de minimis loopholes and China increases tax scrutiny, putting fresh pressure on platforms like PDD and its international arm Temu. Nearly 1 in 5 US consumers say shifting trade policies may discourage them from buying internationally, adding to the company’s challenges amid uneven spending in China. PDD delivered mixed Q3 results, with earnings beating expectations but revenue slightly missing. The overall picture suggests the company must transition from relying on duty-free advantages to strengthening marketplace fundamentals, even as improving user trends signal early signs of resilience

Global ad spending has steadied after a turbulent year, setting the stage for modest acceleration in 2026. Digital is still the main engine, but traditional media’s rebound will add lift as markets stabilize.

Chinese sellers are facing intensifying pressure as the EU fast-tracks the closure of its de minimis loophole amid a rapid rise in low-value parcel imports, complicating efforts by platforms like Shein and Temu already contending with poor reception, legal scrutiny, and safety violations in Europe. With Chinese regulators also tightening oversight by demanding detailed sales data, sellers built around rock-bottom pricing are encountering diminishing returns. The environment is pushing brands to pivot toward stronger compliance and higher product quality, a shift that mirrors the success of players like Anker and is becoming increasingly necessary as global rules harden.

Chinese tax authorities are requiring Amazon, Temu, Shein, and other major platforms to submit Q3 sales data from Chinese merchants as regulators intensify efforts to curb tax evasion in cross-border ecommerce. The information is expected to reveal higher actual sales than those reported, potentially leaving sellers liable for up to 13% VAT plus back taxes. The move aligns with Beijing’s broader push to recover tax revenue, and it comes as global markets tighten de minimis rules. These shifts could reshape marketplace dynamics as Chinese sellers reassess pricing, participation, and ad spending amid rising compliance pressures.

JD.com beat analyst expectations in Q3 as subsidies, lower prices, and a more diversified revenue base encouraged spending despite China’s soft consumer climate. Growth in users and shopping frequency supported double-digit retail gains, while the company’s push into food delivery lifted sales but squeezed margins. JD is also testing its Joybuy platform in Europe and investing in Ceconomy AG to expand its footprint. While these moves help the company outpace a slowing market, the momentum relies heavily on subsidized growth, raising doubts about how sustainable the gains will be once incentives scale back.

Singles Day transactions in China rose 17.6% YoY to 1.7 trillion yuan ($240 billion), according to Syntun, marking a slowdown from last year’s 26.6% gain despite extended campaigns and heavy promotions from Alibaba and JD.com. Platforms poured billions into vouchers and discounts, but longer sale periods diluted urgency and limited impact. The event’s waning momentum highlights China’s broader economic challenges—rising frugality, youth unemployment, and deflationary pressures. To reignite excitement, platforms may need to move away from drawn-out promotions toward shorter, high-impact campaigns that restore Singles Day’s original urgency and appeal.

The news: YouTube’s global reach is rewriting entertainment power dynamics. Creator-led channels now rival and surpass traditional studios, signaling a shift from centralized production to audience-driven storytelling. That dominance extends beyond mobile screens and into the living room. What this means for brands: Half of the top 10 YouTube channels cater to kids and families, offering reliable spaces for brand-safe storytelling and high retention, provided that compliance with child privacy rules is prioritized. Brands that treat creators as strategic media partners—not just influencers—will command trust, deeper engagement, and measurable ROI.

40% of global consumers say they’ve gone out of their way to spend less on US products in response to tariffs, with Canadian consumers leading the way, based on July data from Morning Consult.