How to Make an ROI Slide [Prove & Persuade]
- Ink Narrates | The Presentation Design Agency
- May 31
- 7 min read
Updated: 6 days ago
Our client, Jonathan, asked us an interesting question while we were making their ROI slide:
“How the hell do we show value without boring people to death?”
Our Creative Director answered,
“You strip the fluff and show exactly what matters to them, nothing more.”
As a presentation design agency, we work on many ROI slides throughout the year, and in the process, we’ve observed one common challenge: people drown their audience in data and miss the damn point.
So, in this blog, we’ll talk about how to make ROI slides that punch hard and prove your worth without turning into a yawn-fest.
In case you didn't know, we specialize in only one thing: making presentations. We can help you by designing your slides and writing your content too.
Why the ROI Slide Even Exists
Let’s be real here: nobody puts an ROI slide into a presentation just for decoration.
The ROI slide is your big, flashing “look, we’re not just wasting your time and money” moment. It’s there because whoever’s sitting across the table (or behind the screen) wants cold, hard proof that what you’re pitching, selling, or reporting is worth it.
We’ve seen too many teams treat the ROI slide like some checkbox. They throw in a few random percentages, maybe a half-assed bar graph, and think they’ve done their job. But here’s the truth: if you half-ass the ROI slide, you’re basically saying, “we don’t know if this worked, but hey, trust us.”
And guess what? Nobody will.
The ROI slide exists because people need a clear, direct story that says, “Here’s what you put in. Here’s what you got out. Here’s why it matters.” If you can’t tell that story quickly and confidently, you’re dead in the water.
And yeah, we get it — numbers are intimidating. But the point isn’t to bury your audience under a mountain of metrics. The point is to show value in a way they actually care about.
We’ve seen clients fall into two ugly traps:
The Overkill Trap: They dump a 15-point analysis into the slide, thinking more data equals more credibility.
The Vague Cloud Trap: They stay so high-level that the slide becomes meaningless corporate fog.
Neither works.
So, how do you avoid these traps? How do you make an ROI slide that actually proves worth?
That’s what we’re about to break down.
How to Make an ROI Slide That Actually Shows Value
Alright, you know why the ROI slide matters. Now let’s talk about how to make one that does its damn job.
We’re not here to give you fluffy “best practices” or recycled tips from some blog no one reads. We’re here to tell you what we’ve learned from designing ROI slides for real companies, with real stakes, where the outcome actually matters.
So let’s break this down, piece by piece.
1. Know Who You’re Talking To
First, stop and ask yourself: who the hell is looking at this slide?
Your ROI slide isn’t for you. It’s for them. That’s where most people screw up. They fill it with metrics they think are impressive, but they never stop to ask what the audience cares about.
Are you talking to a CFO? They care about cost savings, cash flow, margins.
Are you talking to a marketing director? They care about leads, conversion rates, campaign impact.
Are you talking to a board? They care about strategic alignment, long-term impact, shareholder value.
One-size-fits-all slides don’t work. Ever.
We worked on an ROI slide last year for a SaaS client. The marketing team came to us with a jungle of metrics: app downloads, user sessions, MRR, churn, CAC, LTV, NPS — basically every damn acronym they could pull from a dashboard. When we asked, “What does the CFO care about most?” they paused. Silence. Light bulb moment.
Here’s the deal: you need to tailor your ROI story. If you can’t answer, “What matters to my audience?” your slide is already failing.
2. Choose One (Yes, One) Main Metric
Now, here’s the part where people freak out: you don’t need to show everything.
Most teams get stuck because they think, “Well, if we leave out metrics, they’ll think we’re hiding something.” Wrong. If you cram the slide with too much data, they’ll stop paying attention. Or worse, they’ll start doubting whether you even know what’s important.
So here’s what we recommend: pick one main metric that drives your ROI story.
One. Not five. Not ten. One.
This metric becomes the hero of your slide.
For example:
If you’re showing sales impact, it might be percentage increase in revenue.
If you’re showing cost savings, it might be reduction in operational costs.
If you’re showing marketing results, it might be customer acquisition cost vs. lifetime value.
Yes, you can have supporting data in the speaker notes or backup slides. But on the main ROI slide, you need one clear headline metric that says, “Here’s why this matters.”
We worked with a European fintech client who had beautiful dashboards but awful slides. We forced them to focus on one metric: how much faster loan approvals became thanks to their new system.
That was the headline. That’s what closed the deal.
3. Show Before and After (Side by Side)
You know what kills most ROI slides? No baseline.
People love to show “We saved 2 million dollars!” But saved compared to what?Or “We improved performance by 35%!” Improved compared to what?
Without a “before,” your “after” is meaningless.
Your ROI slide should always, always, always show before and after, side by side. It gives people context. It tells the story. It shows the journey.
For example:
Old system: average customer wait time = 20 min → New system: 5 min
Old marketing funnel: conversion rate = 3% → New funnel: 7%
Old product: churn = 15% → New product: 6%
When you show these numbers next to each other, people instantly get the impact. You don’t need five paragraphs of explanation. You let the numbers tell the story.
4. Use Visuals, Not Walls of Text
Let’s address the elephant in the room: ugly-ass slides.
We’ve seen ROI slides that look like someone copy-pasted an Excel sheet onto a PowerPoint. Tiny fonts. Messy tables. Paragraphs nobody reads.
No. Stop.
Your ROI slide should use visuals that make the point fast. We’re talking about clean, simple visuals:
A side-by-side comparison chart
A bold percentage increase in large font
An icon or graphic highlighting savings or growth
A simple trend line that shows progress over time
The key here is simplicity. Don’t overdesign. Don’t use ten colors and fifty shapes. Pick a few strong visuals that reinforce your main message.
Remember: slides are visual support, not a report page.
5. Add Context (But Keep It Tight)
Here’s where it gets tricky. Numbers without context are just numbers. But too much context drowns the message.
You need to answer, in one or two sentences (max):
Why does this result matter?
What’s the impact on the business?
For example: "Reducing churn by 9% adds $1.2 million in retained annual revenue." or “Cutting production time by 50% means we can launch two extra product lines per year.”
Notice how we didn’t write a whole paragraph? You’re giving them just enough to connect the dots, not writing a novel.
6. Anticipate the Pushback
This is where the grown-up game starts. Anyone looking at your ROI slide is going to ask, “How do I know this is real?”
You better have an answer.
That means:
Where did the data come from?
Over what time period?
What assumptions were made?
Is this a projection or historical result?
You don’t cram all of this onto the main slide. But you need to be ready with backup slides or speaker notes.
We’ve seen too many pitches crumble when someone asks, “What’s the time window on this data?” and the presenter fumbles. Don’t be that person.
7. Don’t Fake It (They’ll Sniff It Out)
Look, we shouldn’t even have to say this, but here we are: don’t make up numbers.
We get it. You want the slide to look impressive. But nothing kills credibility faster than an ROI slide that smells like bullshit.
If you’re estimating, say it’s an estimate. If you’re projecting, say it’s a projection. If you’re using a small data sample, acknowledge it.
Being upfront about your data’s limits actually builds trust. Trying to cover them up destroys it.
We once worked with a startup that tried to claim a 400% ROI on a pilot program. Impressive, right?
Until we asked, “How big was the sample group?” Turns out, five customers. Five! We helped them recalibrate the claim and frame it honestly. Guess what? They still impressed the investors — because they showed they understood the limits of their data.
8. Practice Saying It Out Loud
Final tip: if you can’t explain your ROI slide in 30 seconds, it’s not ready.
Practice saying it out loud. Really.
“We reduced costs by 20%, saving $1 million annually.”
“We increased conversion rates by 4%, driving $500k in extra revenue.”
“We cut delivery time in half, allowing us to scale twice as fast.”
If you can’t get it out cleanly and confidently, you need to simplify.
Because here’s the brutal truth: people will forget 90% of what’s on your slide, but they’ll remember what you said.
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