i found a few issues with my setup.
1) i forgot to enable Radius NAC for the two SSIDs i had been testing with. that was a major break through. With that setting enabled I was finally getting a redirection page opening on my test client.
2) because i was using an Anchored WLC setup i also had to have the redirection url applied on the anchor WLC which explains why we weren't seeing any of the hit counters on the main WLC.
once i got both of those squared away and setup a guest account to test with it was in business.