Case study · 2022 → 2026
Rebuild
How a two-engineer team rebuilt a SaaS marketing website from the ground up. In 14 languages.
- languages, from English only
- ×14languages, from English only
- in-house plugins and apps
- 21in-house plugins and apps
- structured content types
- 23structured content types
- mobile load time
- −73%mobile load time
- desktop PageSpeed
- 43→99desktop PageSpeed
- Role
- Proposed it and led it, from the first pitch to launch
- Team
- 2 engineers, with design, content, SEO, product marketing and RevOps
- Timeline
- Proposal Dec 2024 · Launch Feb 19, 2026
- Stack
- WordPress (custom theme and 21 plugins), WPML, Salesforce, AWS, AI-first development
01·The starting point
April 27, 2022.
My first day. The site was English-only, on a shared server, split across three domains, with no ticketing system for marketing requests.
mobile PageSpeed in week one, and 24.7 seconds before a visitor could use the page
02·Four years, four chapters
It didn't start with a redesign.
The rebuild was the fourth chapter. The first three built the system it runs on.
Before
Requests by email and Slack. Content split across three domains. A redesign waiting to be finished.
After
Jira for Marketing, with automations. One domain. The redesign finished in-house.
- May 12I create Marketing's Jira, with automations that open requests on their own.
- Sep 15Pages become structured content: one template, change it once, every page updates.
- Oct 1266 landing pages come home from HubSpot subdomains to the main domain.
- Dec 13The redesign ships, finished in-house.
Before
One developer, manual content production, English only, and a shared server running out of room.
After
An AI-assisted content pipeline, schema, a second developer, Spanish and French, and our own AWS server.
- May 2023An AI-assisted blog pipeline, run by Jira automations: outline, draft, SEO and expert passes.
- Sep 2024The site outgrows its shared hosting.
- Oct 2024The site speaks Spanish. French follows in December.
- Dec 2024Our own AWS server instead of a bigger hosting plan.
Before
Several site versions side by side, heavy GIFs, no real conversion points, four languages.
After
Preprod and weekly releases, a Book a Demo engine, AI video, paid-ads ready, llms.txt, 14 languages ready.
- Mar 13No more editing production live: preprod, QA and a weekly release.
- May 29The rebuild kicks off: one design system, simpler pages, animation instead of walls of copy.
- Jun 18A real conversion engine: booking, attribution, CAPTCHA, Salesforce hand-off and lead preservation.
- Sep 24Ready for AI search: llms.txt, then schema, FAQs and navigation built for AI.
- Nov 26Real-user mobile load time rated “Good” for the first time: 2.1 s, down from 4.5 s.
Before
Manual publishing in WordPress. Third-party analytics blocked by consent.
After
The new site live, PageSpeed 99, cookie-free analytics and a portal that ships content on its own.
- Feb 19The new site goes live. 14 languages, the same night.
- Jun 9PageSpeed 99 on desktop, after caching, AI-crawler rate limits and front-end work.
- Jul 1The publishing portal: content ships from its sources through automated importers.
03·Launch
February 19, 2026.
The new site goes live. In 14 languages, the same night.
- ENEnglish2022
- ESSpanishOct 2024
- FRFrenchDec 2024
- PT-BRPortuguese (BR)Oct 2025
- DEGermanFeb 19, 2026
- ITItalianFeb 19, 2026
- NLDutchFeb 19, 2026
- PT-PTPortuguese (PT)Feb 19, 2026
- DADanishFeb 19, 2026
- SVSwedishFeb 19, 2026
- NONorwegianFeb 19, 2026
- FIFinnishFeb 19, 2026
- ELGreekFeb 19, 2026
- ARArabicFeb 19, 2026
One design system, 23 content types, schema everywhere and a real conversion stack, in a single release. Published items across all languages went up ten times.
04·What changed
Not just a new look. A platform the team runs on.
A conversion engine
A Book a Demo widget on every page, with booking, time zones, CAPTCHA and Salesforce hand-off. Visitors who leave halfway are kept as leads.
Self-service publishing
Content syncs from where it lives, waits for approval and ships in every language, without anyone opening WordPress.
Fast on a phone
Our own server, a lighter front end and a three-stage tune-up took Core Web Vitals from failing to passing.
05·Speed
Fast where it matters. On a phone.
Feel the difference
How long a visitor waits for the page on a phone.
Chrome UX Report, real-user p75 LCP on the mobile homepage, played at real speed (the pages are an illustration). Best weekly reading, 28 days to Sep 26, 2026; in October it reads 1.8–2.0 s.
PageSpeed
The site moved to our own AWS server in 2024, then got lighter with the rebuild and a three-stage tune-up.
Speed & hosting →Desktop
from 43 in 2022
Mobile
from 16 in 2022
Lighthouse. Desktop peaked at 99 in June 2026; mobile is the median of three runs in October 2026.
06·The system
21 tools. Two engineers. AI-first.
Instead of stacking more SaaS subscriptions, we built what the business needed on our own platform: 1,671 commits since June 2025, about 78% of them mine.
- Jun 2025Site theme
- Jun 2025Self-serve signup
- Jun 2025Book a Demo engine
- Jul 2025Form shortcodes
- Aug 2025Lead-gen tools site
- Oct 2025Landing-page generator
- Nov 2025Promotions engine
- Dec 2025Glossary importer
- Dec 2025Testimonials
- Dec 2025Webhooks
- Jan 2026FAQs
- Jan 2026Partner promotions
- Jan 2026First-party analytics
- Mar 2026Video library
- Apr 2026Dashboard
- Apr 2026Partner program sync
- Apr 2026Webinars
- Jun 2026Raw HTML pages
- Jun 2026Publishing portal
- Jun 2026Real-time data bridge
- Sep 2026Widgets
July 2026 · The publishing portal
Content syncs from its real sources, waits for approval and ships in every language. Nobody has to open WordPress.
How it works →releases, since March 2025
Before, changes were made straight on production.
content types
One template each: change it once and every page updates.
Content at scale
- FAQs, crawlable and translated
- 683FAQs, crawlable and translated
- glossary terms, imported in a day
- 303glossary terms, imported in a day
- integration pages from one template
- 1,966integration pages from one template
- published items across languages
- ×10published items across languages
07·Design & media
A site that shows instead of tells.
lighter than the GIF it replaced
Motion, not walls of copy
Vector animations for the key features, then a move to AI-generated video shipped as light WebM loops.
launch and ad videos in 2026
One AI video pipeline
The pipeline built for the homepage now makes product-launch videos and their cuts for social and paid ads.
feature icons, one visual kit
One design system
Built with the design team for the rebuild, replacing three site versions that used to coexist.
08·The team
Built as a team. Led end to end.
I proposed the rebuild, planned it and led the build with the second engineer on my team. It shipped because the whole marketing team built it with us.
- Development & infrastructure
- Preprod, deploys, performance and tracking, with the second engineer on my team
- Design
- The new design system, typography, feature icons and imagery
- Animation & AI video
- Lottie animations first, then AI-generated video
- SEO, content & AI visibility
- Schema, the blog, reports and LLM visibility
- CRO & web content
- Conversion data and the pages behind both redesigns
- Product marketing
- Copy for features, launches and pricing
- Demand generation
- Paid search and social, ad landing pages and lead routing
- RevOps
- Salesforce attribution, lead data and the revenue data platform
“It's not a mistake. It's a missing process.”
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Every figure on this page is public or my own measurement: Chrome UX Report, PageSpeed captures, git and the site's own content. The company's business data stays private.