Pakistan marketing services exports rose 19% year on year to $30.7 million in July–September 2026, according to State Bank of Pakistan data shared by Payoneer, as more than 40 marketing agencies gathered in Lahore to plan how to win more clients abroad.
The figures cover advertising and market research services sold to foreign clients in the first quarter of the 2026–27 fiscal year, up from $25.8 million in the same quarter last year. The growth set the backdrop for Payoneer Connect Lahore, an event hosted by the global payments company under the theme “The Export Era of Global Marketing”, where agency leaders met representatives of the Pakistan Software Houses Association (P@SHA), Google and artificial intelligence practitioners.
Pakistan Marketing Services Exports: The Numbers Behind the 19% Jump
The rise in Pakistan marketing services exports is part of a broader professional-services upswing. Other business services — the wider State Bank category that covers public relations, consulting and technical services — recorded exports of $620 million in the same quarter, up 27% year on year. Within that category, consulting and public relations services rose 22% to $81.2 million.
The numbers matter because marketing services are a small but fast-growing slice of Pakistan’s services exports, and they sit close to the country’s much larger IT and IT-enabled services trade. Agencies selling advertising, market research and creative work abroad earn in dollars while working from Pakistani cities, and the 19% jump suggests demand for that work is holding up even as global marketing budgets stay under pressure.
The figures come from State Bank data as cited by Payoneer at its Lahore event, and were reported by several Pakistani outlets in early November. The State Bank publishes services-trade data by category each quarter, and the July–September figures are the first full quarter of the new fiscal year.
Payoneer Connect Lahore: 40+ Agencies Plan the Global Push
Payoneer Connect Lahore brought together more than 40 marketing agencies to explore how to win clients abroad and scale with them. Hosted by Payoneer, the global financial technology company that helps businesses grow across borders, the event mixed agency leaders with representatives of P@SHA, Google’s Customer Solutions team and AI practitioners.
The theme — “The Export Era of Global Marketing” — captured the shift the organisers wanted to highlight: Pakistani agencies moving from one-off freelance-style work toward longer client relationships, retainers and productised services that can be sold repeatedly in foreign markets. The event was built around a simple question: how can Pakistan marketing services exports keep growing at this pace?
AI and the Future of Pakistan’s Marketing Exports
Artificial intelligence ran through much of the day’s discussion. A fireside chat on agentic AI with Ali Imran Memon, founder and chief executive of Kitsune AI, examined whether Pakistan has reached the limits of freelancing and outsourcing, and how agencies can turn their expertise into AI agents and products rather than billable hours. The conversation also weighed whether AI services should be priced by subscription, task or outcome — a question that matters for agencies trying to grow revenue without simply adding headcount.
Google’s Customer Solutions team showed how localisation using AI tools can greatly expand cross-border business opportunities for Pakistani companies, letting small agencies serve clients in new markets and languages without building large local teams first. Pakistani technology firms are already winning recognition for AI work: tkxel was recently named a select partner by both OpenAI and Anthropic in a rare double win.
The message from the event was consistent: AI is lowering the cost of scaling into new markets, and the agencies that learn to sell AI-powered services — not just hours — will capture the faster-growing share of export earnings. That shift is already visible in Pakistan marketing services exports, where the fastest-growing work is increasingly digital, measurable and AI-assisted.
Policy Support Behind the $15 Billion IT Export Target
Sustaining the growth will also depend on policy. P@SHA Vice Chairman Samad Saleem outlined the policy and advocacy work under way to enable and scale Pakistan’s digital services exports, as the government pursues its target of $15 billion in IT exports by 2030. P@SHA has been pitching that ambition abroad, including taking Pakistan’s case to Nordic tech leaders at Oslo Innovation Week.
That target frames the marketing-services numbers in a wider ambition: Pakistan’s technology and professional-services exporters are being asked to roughly quadruple today’s earnings within the decade, and marketing services — creative, measurable and easy to deliver remotely — are one of the more plausible growth engines.
For now, the July–September figures give Pakistan marketing services exports a solid base to build on. Whether the momentum holds will show in the next quarter’s State Bank data — and in whether the Lahore gathering turns into signed contracts rather than just conversation.
Sources: BizTimes and Timeline News.
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