Privacy Policy

Most privacy policies are written to protect the business from the reader. This one is written to tell you what actually happens, because the honest answer here is short and there's nothing to hide behind.

Carie My Marketing is a sole consulting practice run by Leighton Hendrick in Austin, Texas. When this policy says "I" or "me," that's who it means. This policy covers the website at cariemymarketing.com.

What this site collects

When you fill out the contact form

The contact form asks for the following. Name, email address, and your message are required. The rest are optional and the form works fine without them.

• Your name and email address, so I can reply
• Company or brand, if you choose to give it
• What you're trying to figure out, the dropdown selection
• Your message
• How you found me, if you choose to answer

The form also includes two hidden anti-spam fields: one invisible field that real people never see or fill in, and a timestamp recording when the page loaded. Both exist to filter out automated submissions. Neither collects anything about you.

Form submissions are handled by Netlify, which hosts this site, and they arrive in my email.

When you're just reading

This site uses Google Analytics 4 to understand which pages get read and how people find them. It collects things like the pages you visited, roughly where you are geographically, your device and browser type, and which site or search sent you. It sets cookies to do this. Analytics loads a moment after the page finishes loading, so it never slows down what you came to read.

Like every website, the hosting server also keeps standard access logs, which include IP addresses. That's a normal part of how web hosting works and how servers defend against abuse.

What this site doesn't do

This part matters more than the list above, because it's where most sites differ from what people assume.

• No advertising or retargeting trackers. No advertising pixels, no retargeting tags, no social media tracking scripts. If you visit this site, you won't start seeing ads for it elsewhere.
• Your email never goes on a list. If you contact me, I reply. You aren't added to a newsletter or a sequence, and you won't get marketing you didn't ask for. The note under the contact form says no spam and no cold outreach, and this policy is the binding version of that promise.
• Nothing is sold, rented, or traded. Not your email, not your message, not your analytics data. Not to anyone, for any price.
• No accounts, no payments on this site. There's nothing to log into and no payment information is collected here.
• No sensitive categories. I don't ask for or want health, financial, biometric, precise location, or similar sensitive information. Please don't put any in the contact form.

Who else touches this data

Two companies, both acting as service providers for this site rather than using your data for their own purposes.

Who	What they handle
Netlify	Hosts the site and processes contact form submissions. Sees form contents and standard server logs.
Google Analytics	Website usage measurement. Sees page views, referral source, approximate location, device and browser details.

Beyond those two, information gets shared only if the law requires it, which has never happened.

How long things are kept

Contact form submissions stay in my email and in the form dashboard indefinitely. I'd rather tell you that plainly than publish a deletion schedule I don't actually follow. Business conversations resurface years later, and I keep the thread.

If you'd prefer I didn't, say so and I'll delete yours. That's a real offer, not a formality.

Analytics data is retained according to the settings in the analytics account and is aggregated rather than tied to your name.

Cookies

The only cookies this site sets are the analytics ones described above. There are no advertising cookies and no third-party tracking cookies.

You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings, and the site will work normally without them. Browsers also offer a global privacy control setting, and most modern ones let you send a do-not-track signal. If you'd rather opt out of Google Analytics specifically across every site you visit, Google publishes a browser opt-out add-on.

Client information during engagements

This is separate from the website, but it's a fair question and worth answering here.

Consulting engagements often involve access to a client's own analytics, search console, or advertising accounts in order to do the work. That access is granted by the client, governed by the engagement agreement rather than by this policy, and used only to deliver the work being paid for.

Client identities are treated as confidential by default. Where client work appears anywhere on this site, it's anonymized unless that client has specifically agreed to be named. Client data is never sold, and it isn't used to market to anyone.

Your choices and your rights

Whatever jurisdiction you're in, you can ask me to do any of the following with information you've given this site:

• Tell you what I have. Ask and I'll tell you what's on file.
• Correct it if something's wrong.
• Delete it. Ask and it goes.
• Confirm I'm not selling it. I'm not, and I never have.

Depending on where you live, you may have these rights formally under law, including under Texas, California, and other state privacy statutes, and under the GDPR if you're in the UK or the European Economic Area. Rather than sort out which set applies to you, I'll honor any of the above from anyone who asks. There's no charge and you won't be treated differently for asking.

The legal basis for handling your contact form information, if you're somewhere that requires one to be stated, is that you asked me to get in touch and I need the information to do it. For analytics, it's a legitimate interest in understanding whether the site is useful.

Visitors outside the United States

This site is operated from the United States and the information described here is stored and processed there. If you're contacting me from elsewhere, your information will be handled in the US, where privacy law differs from what may apply where you live. Using the contact form means you're okay with that.

Children

This is a business site aimed at business owners and marketing teams. It isn't directed at children, and I don't knowingly collect information from anyone under 16. If you believe a child has sent information through this site, let me know and I'll delete it.

Changes to this policy

If what this site does with data changes, this page changes with it, and the date at the top gets updated. I'm not going to quietly rewrite it and hope nobody notices. Given how little is collected here, substantial changes are unlikely.

How to reach me

Questions about any of this, or a request to see or delete your information, go to the same place everything else does. Use the contact form, or email me directly at the address in the footer below.