New report analyzes global marketing spend shifts, industry signals, and measurement priorities shaping marketing planning in 2026
NEW YORK, NY, UNITED STATES, January 12, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — Omni Media Consulting today announced the release of The Global Marketing Outlook 2026: What Scaled in 2025 and the Growth Levers Defining 2026, a new report designed for C-suite leaders and VPs navigating rising performance pressure, evolving measurement standards, and the accelerating shift toward commerce-linked media and AI-enabled workflows.
The report concludes that 2025 created an “efficiency squeeze” across industries: growth concentrated in digital and retail media while expectations for provable ROI rose. According to the report’s executive summary, the organizations that outperformed unified their data, localized intelligently, and measured incrementally beyond channel silos, building a system in which creative, channels, and revenue logic operate as a single, synchronized decision layer.
Global Growth and Spend Signals
The report projects global ad spend rising from approximately $1.17T in 2025 (estimated) to approximately $1.24T in 2026 (projected), with budget gravity re-centering on measurable outcomes and incremental contribution. Omni Media Consulting notes that the mandate for 2026 is not simply to expand the channel mix, but to strengthen cohesion—one operating system for planning, creative, analytics, and investment decisioning.
Key Themes Defining 2026
The Global Marketing Outlook 2026 identifies three cross-industry realities that shaped 2025 and will continue to govern 2026 performance:
1. Budget gravity toward performance channels tied to outcomes, including retail media, high-intent search, and commerce-connected video.
2. AI moving from pilots to workflow, delivering impact only when it connects planning, creative, and measurement together.
3. A measurement reset, with system-level attribution approaches (including MMM, experiments, and multi-touch attribution) replacing single-touch shortcuts.
Industry-Wise Findings: What to Watch in 2026
The report includes industry-focused analysis spanning Technology, Healthcare, Finance, E-commerce, F&B/CPG, Automotive, Education/Nonprofit, Travel & Hospitality, Retail (Omnichannel), Health & Wellness, Insurance (Consumer), and Gaming.
Notable sector signals and priorities highlighted in the report include:
1. E-commerce and Retail Media
Retail media is positioned as a central operating system for growth, with retail media spend projected at approximately $196.7B in 2026 (up from approximately $174.9B in 2026 spend projections shown in the report’s retail media section), alongside a growing requirement to prove incrementality.
2. Technology
Tech marketing is shifting from channel-first execution to data-unified go-to-market systems focused on an attributable pipeline. The report projects worldwide IT spend increasing from approximately $5.61T to approximately $6.08T in 2026.
3. Healthcare
Privacy-led performance is emerging as a growth lever, with consent-first capture and outcomes-aware analytics prioritized. The report projects global healthcare advertising spend rising from approximately $44.56B to approximately $46.98B in 2026.
5. Finance and Insurance
The report indicates a pivot away from channel ROAS toward contribution and LTV-driven decisioning, with identity-safe measurement and incrementality testing becoming standard operating expectations. Insurance spend is projected to rise from approximately $14.12B to approximately $15.61B in 2026.
6. Gaming
With the market normalized around approximately $188.8B and an estimated 3.6B players (as cited in the report), the 2026 advantage is expected to come from localization, data integration, and ecosystem strategy over channel tactics.
The 2026 Playbook: Six Levers for C-Suites
The report culminates in a six-lever executive playbook intended to guide leadership planning and operational design in 2026:
1. Data Unification: a single decision layer across media, web, CRM, and product analytics
2. Retail Media Everywhere: expand beyond endemic categories using contribution ROAS
3. Localization as Strategy: behavior-first market execution, not translation-first
4. Martech Utilization: rationalize stacks, define usage KPIs, and enable teams
5. Measurement Reset: triangulate MMM, experiments, and MTA; manage incrementality as a product
6. AI Ops with P&L Guardrails: embed AI into planning, creative QA, and analysis—eliminating isolated pilots
Quote from Omni Media Consulting Leadership
“In 2026, efficiency alone will not be enough. The next wave of advantage will come from building an analytics-led operating system—where creative decisions, channel investment, and revenue logic are synchronized and measured through incremental contribution,” said Saurav Chhabra, Director at Omni Media Consulting. “This report is designed to help leadership teams move from fragmented performance tactics to a unified growth architecture.”
Availability
The Global Marketing Outlook 2026 is now available through Omni Media Consulting’s website and social channels. An Amazon edition will be released in the coming days, expanding access for global leadership teams seeking an executive-ready view of the 2026 marketing strategy and measurement.
About Omni Media Consulting
Omni Media Consulting is a marketing consulting firm founded in November 2023. The firm enables enterprises to harness data and technology to achieve global standards of marketing excellence and sustainable growth. Omni Media Consulting partners with organizations to unify strategy, measurement, and execution across channels—turning marketing into a performance operating system. Act. Impact. Grow.
Saurav Chhabra
Omni Media Consulting
+1 914-297-7516
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