Inflation-challenged marketers are putting a new stress on efficiency, according to this Merkle report.  They’re eagerly new channels such as retail media networks and connected TV, while prioritizing creative and analytics investments that can optimize performance in all media. And, yes, they’re worried that privacy changes will impact both targeting and measurement.  Download for more interesting insights.

Some investors are still spending money: India-based CRM LeadSquared announced a $153 million Series C, bringing total funding to $188 million.  In an unusually revealing report, the company says it had about $25 million revenue last year and 1,200 employees, yielding $22,000 revenue per employee.  That’s less than one-tenth of HubSpot or Salesforce.  Not good or bad, but interesting.

Martech keeps taking larger bites out of marketing budgets: 17.3% last year, 19.9% this year, 23.5% next year, and 30.9% five years from now, according to the latest CMO Survey. This despite barely more than half (56.4%) of current tools being used and nearly half (48.8%) of the survey respondents reporting worse-than-expected results. Oddly enough, marketers rate selecting marketing technologies as the thing they do best.