The Marketing ROI Report Builder
Walk into the leadership meeting with a number you can defend.
See the workbook
Marketing Leadership Toolkit · Volume 03
The Marketing Budget Defense Kit
Build a number you can defend. Then defend it.
A working system for marketing leaders heading into budget season. Four worksheets that build the number from campaigns up, a one-page business case, a scenario-tested ROI projection, ten word-for-word answers to the objections that always come, and a triage tool for the day finance proposes cuts.
Fillable PDF + editable Word companion · Instant download · For heads of marketing on lean teams
4Budget-building worksheets
10Word-for-word objection scripts
5Defensive metrics to know cold
12Week planning timeline
Why it exists
You know the version that goes badly. A spreadsheet assembled over a weekend. A number that came from last year's number plus a percentage. Then someone in finance asks what happens if you take twenty percent out of it, and you answer in real time, in front of the people whose opinion of marketing you spend the rest of the year managing.
The instinct afterwards is to build a better deck.
I think that misses it. A budget conversation is not a presentation problem. It's a preparation problem wearing a presentation costume. The marketer who wins has usually done four unglamorous things: built the number from campaigns rather than from last year, separated what's fixed from what's discretionary, modelled what happens at a lower number before being asked, and rehearsed the questions out loud.
That's what this kit is. Not arguments for spending more — a method for making your number legible to the people who decide.
Time to complete: spread across the twelve weeks before budget season. 35 pages, 457 fillable inputs. Every external statistic is sourced on the page or it isn't in the book.
What's inside
4 budget worksheets · 10 objection scripts · ROI projection calculator · Protect-or-cut triage.
Every part opens with the argument for why it matters, then hands you the tool. Nothing in it is reading for its own sake.
Part 01
Build: The Budget Construction Framework
- Find Your Benchmark
- Channel Allocation Worksheet
- The Campaign-First Budget Builder
- Fixed vs. Variable Cost Planner
Part 02
Justify: The Business Case
- The One-Page Budget Justification
- ROI Projection Calculator
- Business Case Narrative — The First Three Beats
- Business Case Narrative — The Projection and the Ask
Part 03
Present: Winning the Room
- The Five-Part Presentation Framework
- Objection Scripts — One Through Five
- Objection Scripts — Six Through Ten
- When the Cut Has Already Been Decided
Part 04
Protect: Mid-Year Defense
- Mid-Year Budget Review Template
- The Protect-or-Cut Triage — Five Criteria
- The Triage Grid and Decision Guide
- The Defensive Metrics Dashboard
Part 05
Next Year: Close the Loop
- Annual Budget Planning Timeline
- Year-over-Year Budget Analysis
- Performance Against Investment
- Next Year Budget Request Builder
Quick reference
Take it with you
- The Budget Defense Cheat Sheet
- Five Numbers and the Sentences That Land
Sample pages
Built to be filled in, on screen or on paper.
Real form fields in the PDF, so you can type straight into it. Print it and it's a clean workbook. The Word companion is there if you'd rather edit freely.
Get it
$57, yours to keep and reuse.
One purchase covers your use within one business, every quarter, for as long as it's useful. You'll get the fillable PDF and the Word companion the moment checkout finishes, plus the updated edition when the book changes.
Checkout is handled by Gumroad. Sales tax is included where it applies. If it isn't what you needed, reply to the receipt within 30 days and we'll refund it.
Also in the toolkit
The 90-Day Campaign Blueprint
Plan a quarter your team can actually execute.
See the workbook
Start a conversation
Worked through it and hit the question you can't answer alone?
That's usually where an engagement starts. Thirty minutes, no pitch — bring the page you got stuck on.