Cross-border mergers and acquisitions by emerging multinational enterprises have significant failure rates due to difficulties in gaining legitimacy from local stakeholders. By incorporating the concept of strategic green marketing into marketing innovation via defensive green marketing and assertive green marketing, this study focuses on the green part of marketing innovation in the context of cross-border merger and acquisitions (M&As) by emerging multinational enterprises. This study examines the effects of defensive and assertive green marketing approaches on cross-border M&A completion as well as the boundary conditions of marketing channels of financial advisors. An analysis of 358 cross-border M&As conducted by Chinese firms over 9 years (2007 to 2015) reveals that conducting corporate social responsibility activities as a defensive green marketing approach, developing green patents as an assertive green marketing approach, and hiring financial advisors as a marketing channel can increase cross-border M&A completion rates. The main relationship between assertive green marketing approach and M&A completion is weakened by financial advisors due to the substitute effect between financial advisors and assertive green marketing innovation. This paper provides insights for international business studies by adopting the strategic green marketing perspective and linking the marketing innovation literature to the emerging multinational enterprises internationalization literature.