TL;DR: When you show all your data at once, you force your audience to play catch-up. A simple shift—revealing it in layers—helps them follow your thinking and absorb what matters most.
That chart makes perfect sense—to you.
You’ve been in the data for weeks. You know exactly where to look and what the numbers mean. But your audience is seeing it for the first time, and it’s a lot.
Every bar, label, and number competes for their attention. They’re squinting at the chart, trying to find the key point you just mentioned while also trying to follow what you're saying. Most of the time, they miss both.
Take this example:
You’re presenting results from a Q3 email campaign. You say, “We saw a 40% jump in open rates, but conversions stayed flat compared to Q2.”
That’s a strong setup for a deeper conversation. But if Q3 is buried in a full bar chart—no highlight, no clear anchor—people start scanning. They’re hunting for Q3. By the time they find it, they’ve missed what you said next.
Here’s the fix: reveal your data in stages.
Instead of putting everything on the slide at once, walk your audience through it one step at a time. Think of it like pacing a good story—you don’t start with the ending.
Here’s one way to break it down across a few slides:
-
Slide 1: Set the stage.
Start with just the context or the baseline. Help your audience get oriented before the numbers start rolling in. -
Slide 2: Add the key insight.
Now bring in the standout result—highlight it, label it, make it unmistakable. -
Slide 3: Show the full picture.
With everyone grounded in the setup and focused on what matters, expand the view. Now they’re ready to take it all in—and actually understand it.
This approach isn’t about simplifying the data—it’s about simplifying the path to understanding.
A quick example from the stage
At ConvertKit’s Craft + Commerce conference this year, Chenell Basilio used this exact strategy in her keynote.
She was telling the growth story of Sahil Bloom’s newsletter. Instead of showing the full line graph up front, she started with just the early growth phase. No clutter. No labels. Just enough to make people curious.
Then, once everyone was with her, she revealed the full timeline—and labeled just one moment: The Ask. That was the move that drove his exponential growth. And because it was the only label on the slide, it stood out instantly.
That’s the power of revealing data in layers. It gives your story structure. It helps your insight land.
Wrap-up
People can’t process everything at once. And when a chart demands too much effort, your message gets lost. But when you walk your audience through the data step-by-step, you help them focus, follow, and remember.
