Very little of what we told clients was coming in September actually happened in October. No content was written in Notable for any client in this wave during October, and 10 of the 18 don't have a Notable project at all. Two brand kits went live, AgelessYou and Ernesto, both on 28 October. Flatpack missed all five September promises and Ernesto all four. Pink Bins has had no refreshes since July. The October tabs don't claim any of it.
September tabs were edited. "Coming up" lines that didn't happen were taken out of the September tabs on 9 November for Drop Bear, HD, Pink Bins, Remarkable, The Haven, Eden, Roman, A&M and Sinclair, so a re-read won't show them, though clients have seen the originals. Ernesto and Flatpack still carry theirs.
Fresh QA agents checked every tab, tracing more than 3,000 numbers back to the raw data. They found one Nature Baby table on a mixed basis, now fixed. Everything else in the main tables traced. What they did find was mostly numbers that read better than they should, and those are fixed: green removed from Maps grid movement on three clients, a Nature Baby "93%" that is about 89% on one basis, Five Star's revenue now shown without the Meta campaign, A&M's visits now carrying the 13.9% fall on last year, Flatpack's +48.4% now shown beside +38.8% without $76,800 of unattributed purchases, and Ernesto's forms now sitting beside bookings that fell.
| Client | October headline | Before you send |
|---|---|---|
| Pink Bins ↗ Quick call first | Organic revenue $26,678 (up 33.2% on September, ~27x plan); clicks 2,689 (down 30.1% on Oct 2025); 17 of 35 keywords in the top 3 on 9 November. | No refreshes were produced in September or October and the Notable dashboard and SEO doc columns promised last month didn't happen; this email says nothing about them, so add a line if you want to raise it. Craig wrote 'Chat in October' on 14 Sep and there's no call on record, also not mentioned here. |
| Sinclair Plumbing ↗ Quick call first | Search views 357 (from 321) but phone calls 8 (from 20); Upper Hutt top 3 at 19 of 169 grid points (11 last scan), Lower Hutt 19 (26 last scan), on a new scan tool. | Ali's Notable catch-up line: keep or cut (it commits you to coming back with a time, and Sinclair has no Notable project yet behind your 23 Oct 'something really cool to show you'). |
| HD Plumbing & Gas ↗ | Calls 33 (from 28), search views 766 (from 680), clicks 49 (from 31); plumber Feilding 159 of 169 top 3 on a new scan tool; Uneeda passed on reviews 142 to 140. | Check the October posts and review replies were actually approved: the approval emails sit unread in the agency inbox. |
| A&M Detailing ↗ Quick call first | 165 clicks, up 11.5% on September and down 59.1% on last October; 2 of 16 keywords in the top 3 on the 9 Nov check, from 0 on 12 Oct; 4 enquiry forms | Last month's parts store and Notable promises did not happen; separate AI coach bump draft left alone; text Isaac on send, the August pack notes our mail lands in his spam. |
| Frontline Security ↗ Send | 25 forms and 18 phone clicks; impressions up 14.3% but organic clicks 222 (down 4.7%, down 32.1% on Oct 2025); 10 of 24 keywords on page one on 9 Nov (13 on 12 Oct); AI visits 0. | Seven keywords left page one, six of them no longer found. Those six are a real organic slip on one desktop check, not a tool fault, and Frontline still shows first or second in the map on the four tested. Check with Vicky that no blog sign-off reached blogs@, which I can't read. |
| Drop Bear ↗ The Haven ↗ Send, joint | Drop Bear: 234 bookings (up 3.5% on September), organic clicks 2,543 (down 38.8% on Oct 2025). The Haven: 594 organic clicks (up 28.0%, record month). | Almost no October delivery on either retainer (no ClickUp movement, AirOps rows or Notable pieces), and September's promises didn't happen (Drop Bear impressions finding, booking tracking detail, Maps panel; The Haven rankings check): this email says nothing about them, so add a line if you want to raise it. Amanda's question about whether proofreading is still needed is unanswered, and Hana's catch-up was never rebooked. |
| Will & Wind ↗ Your call | Clicks 953, up 17.1% on September but down 20.2% on last October; organic revenue A$2,144, down from A$3,337. | Slack 31 Jul: you agreed to stop the retainer and asked for the recurring invoice to be cancelled, and Xero has no invoice since. September's report still went. Confirm a report should still go. |
| DCIS ↗ Your call | Search views 548 (from 466, 328 a year ago); 6 new five-star reviews, 203 total; grid top 3 at 19.5% (from 28.2%) on a new scan tool. | September's report never went to DCIS, so this is the first since August. Your call on recipients (Wayne, Jo) and on the offer tab. |
| Client | October headline | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| Nature Baby ↗ Tab only | NZ clicks 15,096, down 30.1%, branded search about 83% of that fall. Google sales, normal search plus ads, $148,701, up 8.3%: normal search down about $37,500 and ads up about $48,900, ad cost unknown. | Two pages, the homepage and the sale page, made up about 89% of the fall in page clicks. The sale page now redirects to New In. Notable logins and calibration articles did not happen. There is no September tab. |
| Eden Orchards ↗ Tab only | Organic revenue $21,452, up 32.9% on September, down 23.4% on last October. Clicks 2,326, down 32.7% on last October. Non-branded clicks 292, down 21.7%. | Ten delivered lines. $246,819 of site revenue, 38.3%, has no channel against it, and their guarantee is measured on GA4. The September email looks like it never went. |
| AgelessYou ↗ Tab only | Organic revenue $1,544, down 61.4% on September, down 30.4% on last October. All GA4 revenue $22,195, down 64.9%. Clicks 169, down 22.8%. | No cause on the page. Lou's 2 November testing-labs answer is unread. The Backbone theme undid product wording on 27 October. The attribution ledger is not built, so nothing measures against the guarantee. |
| Roman Blinds Direct ↗ Tab only | Clicks 414, down 15.7% on September, down 40.1% on last October. Organic revenue $384, from $2,559. All revenue $12,824, of which $8,436 is paid. | The 74% rise in sessions is Singapore bots. Organic Shopping shows $1,272 while the Merchant account has no products, and a few purchases record $0. Neither is explained, so neither is green. |
| Online Patios ↗ Tab only | Clicks 3,414, up 17.5% on September, up 41.8% on last October. Organic sessions 4,264, up 13.1%. 23 purchases, from 16. | Revenue is left off the page: GA4 says up 41%, Shopify says down 4.1%, and 14 of the 23 orders are draft or office orders. Alex's fixes are dated November, 158 links on 3 November and 5,451 titles not yet live. Angela's items are unanswered. |
| Ernesto Buono ↗ Tab only | Clicks 1,472, up 5.3% on September, up 59.8% on last October. Impressions 223,218. AI visits 181, down 19.9%. Bookings 24 from 26, organic bookings 7 from 12. | None of September's four promises happened. The client's two 8 November questions need Alex. Off the page: three-month non-branded average 1,049 against an 874 baseline and a 2,068 target. |
| The Flatpack Company ↗ Tab only | Clicks 3,912, down 43.0% on September, down 14.5% on last October, 2,756 of the 2,957 lost clicks on the homepage and student pages. Organic revenue $149,564, down 9.8%. | No delivered lines at all. All five September promises were missed. Organic share of revenue 12.6%, from 20.7%. Revenue includes $76,800 from 82 purchases with no site attached. |
| Five Star Napkins ↗ Tab only | Organic revenue US$2,293, up 22.5% on September, down 77.3% on last October. Clicks 623, up 11.2%, down 51.7% on last October. | Six delivered lines. Sessions of 83,656 include about 51,000 from Meta, so the page shows the figures with and without that campaign. |
| Remarkable Auto & Marine ↗ No email | Calls 187, from 167. Search views 347, down 20.6%. WOF Saturday top 3 on 15.4% of the grid, from 62.1% on 1 October, on a new scan tool. | Not a Transformation: the engagement ends 19 November, so there's a tab and no routine email. See decisions. |
Each is on its own new thread. Nothing has been sent. Your signature appends when you send, so it isn't shown here.
Hey Craig 😁
Your October report is up! Organic search brought in $26,678 last month, up from $20,030 in September, so about 27x what goes into the plan each month 🤩 And this time it was more jobs as well as more dollars, 63 purchases against 44!
Clicks were 2,689, up 19.2% on September and still down 30.1% on October last year, so there's more to win back there.
On our live Google check on 9 November, 17 of your 35 tracked keywords were in the top 3 (13 on the last check), with skip bins auckland sitting at number 1! 🔥
Phone clicks hit 98 and WINZ quote forms hit 77, did it feel any busier on your end in October?
Quick bit of news: Zoe Febrero has just joined Team Empathy as our Head of Client Success! 🥳 I've CC'd her here so you can say hi.
With Empathy,
Ben 😊
Hey Ali 😊
Your October report is up here, it runs 25 September to 25 October because that's where Google's numbers landed!
Search views came in at 357, up from 321 the window before and 285 this time last year 🙌 and website clicks went from 35 to 40! Phone calls were the quiet one at 8, against 20 the window before and 11 last year - has it felt that quiet on the phones at your end?
"Plumber Upper Hutt" was top 3 from 19 of the 169 grid points against 11 last scan, "plumber Lower Hutt" went from 26 to 19 (this scan ran on a new tool, so I wouldn't read too much into either move yet!), and another 7 reviews landed taking you to 165 ⭐
Thanks heaps for all those answers last month, and no rush on the PGD licence numbers! You said you'd be keen to catch up about Notable and that's still on my list, I'll come back to you with a time!
Quick bit of news: Zoe Febrero has just joined Team Empathy as our Head of Client Success! 🥳 I've CC'd her here so you can say hi.
With Empathy,
Ben 😊
Hey Hayden 😁
Your October report's up! https://hd-plumbing-report.teamempathy.co.nz/october-2026
Calls off your Google profile came in at 33 for the 25 Sep to 25 Oct window (up from 28), with search views on 766 (from 680) and website clicks on 49 (from 31)! 🔥
You're top 3 for "plumber Feilding" from 159 of the 169 points on the 2 Nov scan and top 10 from every single one! Our Maps scan moved to a new tool for this one, so I wouldn't read too much into it against last month's 169.
Uneeda have snuck past you on reviews, 142 to your 140, can you get the team asking a few more happy customers for a Google review this month?? 🙏
Quick bit of news: Zoe Febrero has just joined Team Empathy as our Head of Client Success! 🥳
With Empathy,
Ben 😊
Hey Isaac 😊
Here's your October report! Clicks came up to 165 from 148 in September and Google showed the site a bit more often as well, 26,832 times, up 4.3% 👍
Ceramic coating Auckland and PPF Auckland were both at 2 on our 9 November live check, from 6 and 13 on 12 October! 🙌 Car detailing Auckland and mobile car detailing weren't showing on the 9 November check though.
Clicks are still a long way off this time last year, 403 back then so down 59.1%, and website enquiry forms were 4, from 5 in September and 16 last October.
Could you pop your real enquiry count for each month into your enquiry tracker? It stops at February so March to October would be amazing! 🙏
Quick bit of news: Zoe Febrero has just joined Team Empathy as our Head of Client Success! 🥳 I've CC'd her here so you can say hi.
With Empathy,
Ben 😊
Hey team 😊
Your October 2026 report is up! Enquiries came in at 25 forms (24 in September) and 18 phone clicks (22 in September), on 851 website visits, down from 1,089 with paid search making up 168 of that drop.
Google showed you 14.3% more often than in September, which is great to see! Fewer of the people who saw you clicked through though (1.02%, from 1.22%), so organic clicks landed at 222, down from 233 in September and 327 last October, and visits from AI assistants were 0, from 7 in September.
On our 9 November Google check 10 of the 24 keywords we checked were on page one, down from 13 on 12 October, and 6 were in the top 3, up from 4!
Your Blogs: "The Role of Security Guards in Crowd Flow Management" came across on 17 September and "What to Look for in Wellington Security Systems" on 15 October, so could you have a read and let us know if you're happy with them or want any changes?
September's Enquiries: did anything change on your side behind the drop to 24 forms and 22 phone clicks, from 43 and 29 in August? A new form, staffing, or just a quieter month for events?
Quick bit of news: Zoe Febrero has just joined Team Empathy as our Head of Client Success! 🥳 I've CC'd her here so you can say hi.
With Empathy,
Ben 😊
Hey Hana & team! 😁
October's reports are up! Here's Drop Bear and here's The Haven. 🎉
Drop Bear took 234 bookings, up 3.5% on September and just ahead of last October! 🙌 Organic clicks are the sore spot at 2,543, down 38.8% on last October, so that's the number I'm watching hardest.
The Haven had its biggest month yet!! 594 organic clicks, up 28.0% on September. 🥳
We never did get that catch-up in! Whenever you've got your head above water I'd love to find a time, and we can go through the homework you've got flagged. How did the awards go?? 🤞
Quick bit of news: Zoe Febrero has just joined Team Empathy as our Head of Client Success! 🥳 I've CC'd her here so you can say hi.
With Empathy,
Ben 😊
Hey Anna and Joachim 😁
Your October report is up! Clicks from Google were 953, up 17.1% on September, and Google showed the site 21.2% more often than October last year 🙌 Clicks are still down 20.2% on last October though, so more people are seeing you and fewer of them are clicking, and that's the number I'm watching.
Organic search brought in A$2,144 from 13 orders, down from A$3,337 from 22 in September, so that one went the wrong way after a big month. All channels together came to A$4,168, up 6.2%, with direct and social sales picking up!
Joachim, on your brand question, the shift I told you about last month didn't carry on: your four busiest collections went from 252 clicks to 251 and the homepage went from 244 to 264. Hooded Towels went from 42 to 76 though, and the gym towels guide from 41 to 79! 😍
Is that the new site I can see live?? 🎉 Let me know when it's officially launched and we'll get into the check you asked for, and yes I'll be kind hahaha
Quick bit of news: Zoe Febrero has just joined Team Empathy as our Head of Client Success! 🥳 I've CC'd her here so you can say hi.
With Empathy,
Ben 😊
Hey Jase! 😊
Your October report is up, and September's is sitting right next to it so you've got both in the one spot!
Search views jumped to 548 from 466 (it was 328 this time last year!) and you picked up 6 new five-star reviews, which takes you to 203 🙌 Phone calls were 15 (from 14), website clicks 46 (from 56) and direction requests 36 (from 50).
Across your ten services you're in the top 3 on 19.5% of the map, from 28.2% on the last scan, and this one ran on a new scanning tool so I want to see the next scan before reading too much into that. Air conditioner installation is still your strongest at 60.9%! Does that match what's been coming through on the phones?
Quick bit of news: Zoe Febrero has just joined Team Empathy as our Head of Client Success! 🥳 I've CC'd her here so you can say hi.
With Empathy,
Ben 😊
| Decision | What is in front of you |
|---|---|
| DCIS: send, and to whom | September's report never went, so this would be the first since August. Who gets it (Jason alone, or Wayne and Jo too) is your call. Older tabs still have the priced offer in their nav. The October tab does not. Your 22 October draft to Jason is still sitting unsent on the old thread, so this would land beside it. This draft links September, one click from the priced offer, and the Strategy tab links it as well. Drop the September link or take the offer out. |
| Will & Wind: should it go at all | On Slack on 31 July you agreed to stop the retainer and cancel the invoice, and Xero shows no invoice since. The September report still went. The page still lists forward work. Older tabs promise Notable, with no project behind it and Anna looking forward to it. Joachim hasn't replied to your 14 October question. His brand question gets a part answer in this email, without a true branded split. |
| Remarkable: a last report | Ends 19 November. You sent your farewell to Nathan this afternoon and it didn't mention a report. The SOP says a client on notice still gets one until the term ends, and the tab is live, so a one-line follow-up would do it if you want them to have it. Maps data needs capturing before 19 November. INV-1542 shows unpaid, though Nathan says he paid it on 6 November. Their window is 30 days against 31 (kept the 26th to 25th cycle); like for like, search views are down 19.1%. |
| Brandkit billing | David cancelled on 23 October and you accepted. The repeating invoice is still active and fires 28 November. INV-1504 and INV-1535 are unpaid. Needs you or Icarus to stop the template and decide on the two invoices. |
| Nature Baby: loose ends | Unassigned sales went from $12,008 to $39,658, which is $27,650 of the $47,770 rise, on flat sessions. We have no Ads access, and Tyler says brand ads were cut August to October while GA4 Paid Search went 4,565 to 15,908. Tyler's unsent draft says the fall is "entirely branded", where the report says 84%. The six-month page's "+69% in the four months with no sale on" counts September, when the sale page took clicks on 8 to 10 September. The three-month PDF still shows $15,000 and $42,500, and the story tab still links it. Yours or Isobel's call on the claim. |
| Flatpack: ask Alex first | A page with no delivered lines is live on their report site, because you asked for every Transformation to have a tab. Alex said on your 28 October call that "Flatpack are not responding". Worth Alex's read on whether it stays up as is. |
| Five Star: the Black Friday promise | On 28 October you told Debra technical foundations would be finished and impeccable, plus 5 to 10 Black Friday pieces. Black Friday is 27 November and there are 0 pieces. The roadmap says the technical audit is underway, which doesn't match Alex's 28 October block. Separately, their International-Remarketing Meta campaign is sending traffic from Nigeria and elsewhere: worth telling Darren. |
| Pink Bins: the refreshes | The tab says refreshes are still to come. Eight are outstanding, nothing has been produced since July and nobody owns them. Confirm or cut before it goes. Craig's "Chat in October" didn't turn into a call. |
| A&M: the rank headline | "2 of 16 in the top 3, from 0" comes from one check. Search Console doesn't back it up: ceramic averaged about 5 and PPF about 13 in early November. The email now dates it to that check. Keep it or lead with the clicks. |
| Drop Bear: Maps | Hana pays for Maps management, September's tab promised it for October (promise since removed), and there's no Maps data in the pack. Worth a word before you talk to her. Amanda's proofreading question is also unanswered. |
| Sinclair: the Notable line | The email says you'll come back to Ali with a time for a Notable catch-up. Ali raised it and you said a couple of weeks, but there's no Sinclair project behind it. Keep or cut. |
| Online Patios: $257,019 | The mid case is still on the strategy tab and onboarding page, against the delivery note saying not to quote it until the re-cut lands. The refined goal message promised for 10 September wasn't found. |
| Eden: the Google Shopping lines | The two biggest delivered lines are Google Shopping and Performance Max work. The words Merchant Center aren't on the page, but it's the subject you've asked to keep out of client pages for now. They're in. Say if you want them out. |
| Offer tabs with prices | Ernesto and Flatpack: $25,000, $5,000 a month, "day 90". Five Star: $30,000, $36,000, $6,000 a month. DCIS and AgelessYou: offer links on the Strategy tab and others. All were live before this wave, and October's nav doesn't link them. |
| Zoe and the Transformation clients | The intro only reaches the clients getting an email. The eight Transformation clients, who are the ones Zoe will work with, hear nothing this month. A short separate intro is easy to draft if you want it. |
| Client | Why |
|---|---|
| Brandkit | Terminated 23 October. Billing is in the decisions above. |
| POSrite | Ended 24 October. Lani chased paid-for deliverables on 23 October and nobody owns that. |
| Growth Maintenance | Ended 30 September, final report sent 14 October. The Web Guys' access request of 5 November is unread. |
| Eftpos Now | Ended 30 September. Lani's schema thread of 5 November is open. |
| Prime Plumbing | Term ended 4 October. |
| Flame Grill & Sunfire | Paused, marked revisit November. That date is now. |
| KOOSHOO | Between deals. You told Jesse on 13 October the content strategy was two weeks out. |
| Absolute Essential | Sprint complete, no monthly cadence. |
| Clearwater Wildlife Tours | Project work, no monthly cadence. |
| Oxygen IT | Dormant. |
| Mont Laurent | Signed 2 November, too new. No Xero contact yet. |
| Item | Where it stands |
|---|---|
| Credentials in Slack | Passwords are in plain text in #delivery-clients (client mailbox, September 2025), #the-haven-airops-delivery (site admin, 12 January) and #nature-baby-delivery (SEMrush and Wikidata, flagged in September, still there). All need deleting and rotating. None went into a report. |
| Roadmap tabs are stale | AgelessYou and Online Patios still list the October report as coming. Roman still asks for answers Arlen gave on 9 November. Zoe still reads "joining soon" on several. Eden's says 119 Australian listings where October says 94. These tabs generate from roadmap.json, so a page edit would revert. |
| Overdue invoices | Pink Bins INV-1534 and Eden INV-1537 are overdue. Both are kept out of the reports. |
| Nature Baby Link Watch | Its Google connection has been failing since 26 October, so the weekly check has no Google data since 19 October. |
| Client data sheets | "The data" links on Pink Bins, Drop Bear and The Haven don't have an October column. |
| Approvals unread | Enzo post and reply approvals sit unread in the agency inbox for HD and DCIS, so the pages say written and scheduled, drafted or prepared, never published. |
| Change | Why |
|---|---|
| Live rank checks repaired | Google's result links now come through DataForSEO as wrapped addresses, which made every rank read empty. scripts/dataforseo_client.py now reads the real site from the breadcrumb. One similar read in the category-pulse function isn't patched. Alex should know, since scripts/ is his. |
| Results pages have changed shape | About 40 to 45 of every 95 ordinary results are now social and forum posts. A same-day re-run on Pink Bins moved 23 of 35 terms, so one check is a snapshot. Headline rank chips carry no green unless a second run confirmed them (Pink Bins' 17 did). The Move columns in the rank tables still colour rises green, as last month. |
| Maps scan tool changed | DCIS, HD, Sinclair and Remarkable moved tools between the October and November scans. Grid movement carries no green this month, and each page says so. |
| Authority basis | Ahrefs is gone, so Authority is now DataForSEO on every October tab, with no movement stated against older tabs. |
| What actually happened | Every builder now swept Slack, Fathom, Loom, ClickUp, Gmail and the Notable database for its client before writing a delivered line. Last month's only read the packs. |