A lot of people think site injection works because it expands the fascia covering around the muscle when you inject the steroid. If this is what allows site-injection to induce muscle-specific gains, then obviously transdermal applications would not elicit any effect.
It is also possible that prehaps injecting / transdermally applying test susp (TNE) could cause localized growth. If 4ad is indeed anabolic before conversion as many believe, then it is possible that it could work as well.
So the answer is maybe, but only if you are applying test no-ester (tne) - 4ad and other prohormones are even more doubtfull, as it is unknown whether they bind to receptors before conversion.
Personally, I find the whole site-injection to be extremely dubious at best. I think the fascia-expanding theory is possible, but steroids do not make a muscle grow by entering a muscle - but rather through increasing systematic protein synthesis and stimulation of the CNS.