section_view: marketing
Marketing you can check the math on.
Most marketing help sold to small businesses is more spending with no way to check whether it worked. The marketing side of this studio is the opposite job: making what you already spend measurable, so every decision after that gets easier.
section_view: live_proof
This site measures itself in the open.
The panel on the right prints your visit's events as they happen. Until you accept the cookie banner, they stay queued and nothing leaves your browser. Every client site gets this same setup.
Read the full tracking planThis panel demonstrates the site's own analytics. It lists the dataLayer events fired during your visit with their live status. Nothing is sent until you accept the consent banner; held events flip to sent the moment you do.
0 events · 0 held · 0 sent held = still in your browser, sent nowhere
section_view: marketing_work
What the studio does.
Everything below ships with the five-page website package, and most of it can also be set up on a site you already have.
- 01
Analytics and conversion tracking, set up properly
conversion_tracking
GA4 and Google Tag Manager configured, tested, and verified, so a form submission or a phone call shows up in your numbers as exactly what it is. Most setups I audit are counting the wrong things or counting them twice.
- 02
An honest cookie consent setup
honest_consent
A banner with a real accept and a real decline, where nothing loads before permission. It keeps you on the right side of privacy rules, and it means the numbers you do collect are numbers you can defend.
- 03
Finding out which channels actually bring customers
attribution
When someone enquires, the source travels with them: the ad, the search, the referral. Over a month or two you learn which spending brings customers through the door and which just brings clicks.
- 04
The free ad tracking scanner
scanner
A self-serve tool that reads any site and reports which ad and analytics tags are installed, missing, or firing before consent. It runs instantly without asking for an email, and it is often the first step of an audit.
- 05
Plain-language monthly reporting
reporting
One short report in normal sentences: how many people visited, where they came from, how many enquired, and what changed since last month.
The scanner is free and instant. It is the fastest way to see what your site is measuring today.
section_view: marketing_not_offered
What the studio does not do.
I do not run ad campaigns, and I do not manage social media accounts. Plenty of people do those jobs well, and if you need one I will say so plainly. What I provide is the layer underneath: the tracking that tells you whether the campaigns worked, set up by someone with no stake in the answer. If a McKinney business spends $500 on ads next month, my job is making sure they can see what came back.
This grew out of the same thinking as the web design work here in McKinney: a site, or a campaign, that cannot show you its numbers is a cost you are taking on faith. The rest of this site, including the page documenting its own tracking, is built on that position.
section_view: marketing_faq
Common questions.
What does marketing for a small business actually need?
Measurement comes first. Before spending another dollar on ads or a directory listing, you need to know what your current visitors do and where your current customers come from. Once that is visible, most owners find the next decision makes itself, and the spending that follows is smaller and better aimed.
Do you run Google or Facebook ads for me?
No. I do not run ad campaigns and I do not manage social media. I set up the tracking and reporting underneath them, so that you, or whoever you hire to run ads, can be held accountable with real numbers. That separation is deliberate: my report on whether the ads worked is worth more when I am not the one selling you the ads.
What is the ad tracking scanner?
A free tool at scan.forrestblade.com. Give it any website address and it reports which analytics and ad tags are installed, which are missing, and what loads before visitors give consent. It takes a few seconds and does not ask for an email. It works on your competitors' sites too.
What does the monthly report look like?
One page, in normal sentences. Visits, where they came from, how many turned into enquiries or calls, and what changed since last month, with a short note on why. There is no dashboard to learn and no jargon to decode, and you own the underlying analytics account either way.
section_view: marketing_cta
Start with the free five-minute check.
The free five-minute check looks at your site and your current tracking, and comes back within one business day, with no cost and no obligation attached.