Imagine your data clearly shows that an ad campaign is driving +25% incremental sales, but a senior stakeholder wants to cut its budget because they believe the overall ROI calculation is flawed. How would you communicate your recommendation?

Situation

In my previous internship at a local startup, our digital ad campaign had generated a 28% increase in online orders, but the head of sales wanted to stop the campaign, arguing that the cost per order was too high because my initial analysis had not accounted for coupon redemptions.

Task

I needed to present a corrected, transparent analysis and convince the stakeholder to continue funding without damaging our relationship.

Action

First, I acknowledged his concern and thanked him for spotting a potential gap. I then spent a day recalculating the ROI, breaking down orders into full-price versus coupon-driven. I discovered that even after excluding coupon orders, the campaign still delivered a positive ROI of 1.8x. I prepared a simple one-page visual summary and requested a 10-minute meeting. I opened by saying, 'Sir, you were right to question the calculation. I re-ran the numbers, and here's what I found.' I walked him through the data step by step, focusing on the incremental full-price orders and the long-term customer lifetime value of new users acquired. I proposed a compromise: reduce budget by 15% and redirect that savings to a new creative test, while keeping the core campaign live.

Result

He agreed to the compromise and later told me he appreciated the honest and thorough re-analysis. Over the next month, the campaign continued and generated an additional 310 new full-price customers, exceeding our acquisition target by 40%.