I watched a marketing director get fired over this last month.

She spent $18,000 on an AI content tool. Pitched it as a time-saver. Leadership asked for proof after 90 days. She had none. No baseline. No before state. Just vibes and "it feels faster."

They cut the tool. Then they cut her.

The brutal truth? Without baseline numbers, you're flying blind. Every new tool is a gamble. Every budget conversation is a guess. You can't defend a line item you can't measure.

Here's what most teams do wrong: they wait until after they buy the tool to figure out measurement. Too late. The damage is done.

Marketing budgets are tighter than they've been in years. CFOs are asking harder questions. "Prove it saved time" isn't enough anymore. They want numbers. Before and after.

If you can't show a baseline, you can't prove improvement. Even when the improvement is real.

Forget complex dashboards. Forget 47-point scorecards. You need exactly four numbers to prove an AI tool is worth keeping:

1. Time per deliverable 2. Cost per output 3. Edit cycles required 4. Team capacity utilization

That's it. Four numbers. Get these right and you can defend any tool budget.

What you're about to get:

This baseline system proves ROI even when leadership doubts you.