Web Development / Lead Generation
Industry: Home Services
~24 hrs
Turnaround from static site launch to full Laravel lead-gen rebuild
In short
Arcetis rebuilt a Sydney-area painting and decorating company's website from a static PHP template into a full Laravel 11 lead-generation platform in roughly 24 hours, ahead of a planned paid-search campaign. The rebuild added a custom admin panel, dedicated Quote and Lead data models, a distraction-free Google Ads landing page, and a complete GA4, Google Ads, and Meta Pixel tracking stack, all shipped through automated CI/CD. This case study documents delivered engineering scope only: no paid campaign had launched at the time of writing, so it reports verified build outcomes plus forward-looking planning estimates from a separate feasibility study, never as achieved ad results.
The client is a painting and decorating services business operating in the greater Sydney, Australia region, having started by serving a single suburb before repositioning around a broader greater-Sydney service area to support future growth. Like many trades businesses, its original online presence was a simple, template-based marketing site: fast to launch, but limited to static content with no mechanism for storing quote requests, managing leads, or measuring where prospective customers came from. As the client prepared to invest in paid Google and Meta advertising, that static foundation became a liability. Arcetis was engaged to rebuild the site as a proper lead-generation platform, one capable of capturing form submissions into a real database, routing them to email notifications, and reporting every conversion back to the ad platforms funding the traffic. The rebuild needed to happen fast, since the paid-ads push was imminent.
When the client first came to market online, speed mattered more than infrastructure. The initial site was built as a static PHP marketing site on top of a purchased HTML template, covering the essentials a painting and decorating business needs to be found and trusted: a services page, a portfolio and gallery of past work, indicative pricing information, a blog for SEO content, an FAQ page addressing common customer questions, and standard contact and about pages. For a business with no prior web presence, this was a reasonable first move. It got a professional-looking site live quickly, at low cost, without waiting on a lengthy build. The problem was that a static site is, by definition, a dead end for lead generation. There was no database behind it, which meant no way to record a quote request as structured data, no way to see which service or suburb a lead was interested in, and no way to build an admin view of incoming business. Every submit action on a contact form was, at best, an email and nothing more: no persistent record, no lead status, and no way to segment or follow up systematically as inquiry volume grew. That gap became urgent the moment paid advertising entered the plan. Running Google and Meta ads without conversion tracking is close to flying blind: without a pixel firing on a genuine lead event, an ad platform's bidding algorithm has no signal to optimize toward, and the business has no reliable way to know which keywords, ads, or budgets are actually producing inquiries. Google Ads and Meta both need a verifiable conversion event, typically a thank-you page load or a form-submit signal, to attribute cost per lead and let automated bidding systems learn. A static template site had none of this: no server-side form validation, no lead storage, no thank-you-page conversion firing, and no spam protection to keep bot traffic from polluting ad-attribution data. The business also needed this resolved on a tight timeline. The paid-ads launch was scheduled to follow shortly after the initial site went live, leaving a narrow window to move from a static site existing to a site that could capture, validate, store, and report every lead the ads would produce. That constraint, real infrastructure built fast ahead of a hard ad-spend deadline, defined the engagement.
Arcetis served as the client's technical partner for both the original site launch and the rebuild that followed it. Rather than treating the static site as a fixed asset to patch, Arcetis recommended and executed a full replatform onto Laravel 11, judging that the client's paid-advertising timeline made a database-backed lead-generation system a necessity rather than a nice-to-have. Arcetis handled the complete backend build: the custom admin panel, the Quote and Lead Eloquent models, server-side validated request forms, email notification logic, and the entire conversion-tracking integration across GA4, Google Ads, and Meta Pixel. Arcetis also designed the dedicated Google Ads landing page, built the sticky mobile call and quote CTA bar, and set up the GitHub Actions CI/CD pipeline that now deploys every change to the production VPS with an automated smoke test.
Arcetis replaced the client's static PHP marketing site with a full Laravel 11 application built on PHP 8.2+, Blade templates, and a SQLite database. This shift moved the site from flat, unchangeable HTML pages to a proper application layer capable of storing structured data, validating input server-side, and serving dynamic content. The rebuild preserved the original site's core pages, including services, portfolio, pricing, blog, FAQ, contact, and about, while giving every one of them a real backend, setting the client up for ongoing content updates without needing a developer for routine changes.
Arcetis built a dedicated admin panel with authentication, a dashboard overview, and full create, read, update, and delete management for site content, the project gallery, the services list, and incoming quotes. Instead of relying on a developer to update pricing, add a completed job to the portfolio, or review a lead, the client's team can now log in and manage all of it directly, keeping the site current and keeping lead follow-up in-house rather than dependent on external support.
At the core of the rebuild are two purpose-built Eloquent models, Quote and Lead, backed by server-side validated request forms. Every form submission on the site is checked, stored as structured data, and triggers an email notification, replacing the static site's dead-end contact forms with a real intake system. This gives the client a persistent, queryable record of every inquiry, the foundation needed to manage lead follow-up once paid traffic starts arriving at scale.
Arcetis built a standalone landing page specifically for paid search traffic, stripped of the main site's navigation and footer so visitors arriving from an ad have one job: request a quote. The quote form sits above the fold, and a sticky call and quote CTA bar stays visible on mobile as visitors scroll, keeping the primary conversion actions within thumb's reach throughout the page regardless of how far a visitor scrolls.
Arcetis wired the site for GA4 analytics, a Google Ads conversion pixel, and a Meta or Facebook Pixel, backed by a dedicated thank-you page that fires the relevant conversion events the moment a lead is captured. reCAPTCHA was added to guard the forms against spam and bot submissions, protecting both lead quality and the integrity of the ad-platform conversion data that will feed campaign optimization once ads launch.
Arcetis set up a GitHub Actions workflow that automatically deploys the application to the client's VPS over SSH whenever changes are pushed, then runs an HTTP smoke test to confirm the live site is responding correctly before the deploy is considered complete. This removed manual, error-prone deployment steps, gave the team a repeatable and auditable release process, and ensures that if a deploy ever breaks the site, it is caught automatically rather than discovered by way of a lost lead.
The implementation is best understood as two builds in rapid succession, confirmed by the project's own commit history: an initial static PHP site, and a full Laravel 11 rebuild that replaced it roughly 24 hours later. The first build prioritized speed to market. Arcetis stood up a static PHP marketing site on a purchased HTML template, covering the pages a painting and decorating business needs to establish credibility and be found in search: services, portfolio, pricing, blog, FAQ, contact, and about. This was a legitimate first step. It got the client a live, professional web presence quickly, but it was always understood as a starting point rather than the final architecture, particularly once a paid-advertising push moved onto the roadmap. Within about a day, Arcetis began the second build: a full rebuild of the site on Laravel 11, running on PHP 8.2+ with Blade templating, a SQLite database, and Guzzle for HTTP client needs. This was not a light refactor. It was a genuine replatform, moving every page from static markup into a Laravel application with real routes, controllers, and a data layer behind it. The visual front end kept its licensed commercial template foundation, a painting- and wallpapering-focused HTML and Blade theme, and it is worth stating plainly that this was not a from-scratch visual redesign. What Arcetis custom-built was everything beneath and around that visual layer: the admin system, the data models, the lead-capture logic, and the tracking infrastructure, which is where the real engineering value of the rebuild lives. At the center of the new backend are the Quote and Lead Eloquent models. Each is paired with a server-side validated request class, so form submissions are checked for required fields and correct formats before ever touching the database, and each successful submission triggers an email notification so the client's team is alerted in near-real time rather than needing to check an admin dashboard constantly. A custom admin panel was built alongside this, with authentication and a dashboard giving staff CRUD control over site content, the project gallery, the services list, and the quotes coming in, turning the site from a static brochure into an operational tool. Because the entire purpose of the rebuild was to support an imminent paid-ads launch, conversion tracking was treated as core scope rather than an add-on. Arcetis implemented Google Analytics 4 for general site analytics, a Google Ads conversion pixel to feed cost-per-lead and bidding data back to Google's ad platform, and a Meta or Facebook Pixel to do the same for any Meta campaigns. All three are tied together through a dedicated thank-you page: rather than firing conversion events speculatively on form display or page load, the site only fires them once a lead has actually been captured and the visitor is routed to the thank-you page, keeping the conversion signal clean. reCAPTCHA was layered onto the lead forms to filter out bot and spam submissions before they can pollute either the lead database or the ad platforms' conversion data. A dedicated, no-navigation landing page was built specifically to receive paid search traffic, with the quote request form placed above the fold and a sticky mobile call and quote CTA bar so mobile visitors always have a one-tap path to contact the business or request a quote, no matter how far they have scrolled. Finally, Arcetis put a GitHub Actions CI/CD workflow in place that deploys to the client's VPS over SSH on every push and runs an automated HTTP smoke test immediately afterward, so every release is verified live before it is considered done.
Traffic arriving from paid search lands on a page deliberately stripped of the main site's navigation and footer, removing every exit path except the quote form. The form sits above the fold so the primary conversion action is visible without scrolling, a standard practice for paid-traffic pages where every extra click or distraction measurably lowers conversion rate. This page is kept separate from the main site's informational pages, keeping organic and paid visitors on experiences suited to their intent.
On mobile devices, a persistent call-and-quote action bar stays fixed to the screen as visitors scroll the landing page, keeping a tap-to-call number and a quote request link within reach at all times. Given that a large share of local-service ad traffic arrives on mobile, this keeps the conversion path short regardless of how far down the page a visitor scrolls before deciding to act.
The rebuild wires together GA4, a Google Ads conversion pixel, and a Meta or Facebook Pixel, all converging on a dedicated thank-you page that fires each platform's conversion event only once a lead has actually been captured. This gives both Google's and Meta's ad-bidding algorithms a clean, verifiable conversion signal to optimize toward once campaigns launch, and gives the client a single source of truth for which channel produced which lead.
Quote and Lead submissions run through dedicated Eloquent models paired with server-side validated request classes, so every submission is checked for completeness and correctness before it is stored, with reCAPTCHA screening out bot traffic first. Successful submissions trigger email notifications automatically, giving the client near-real-time visibility into new business inquiries without needing to monitor the admin dashboard around the clock.
Every deploy runs through a GitHub Actions workflow that pushes the application to the production VPS over SSH, then automatically runs an HTTP smoke test against the live site. This catches broken deploys immediately rather than after a lead has already been lost to a down page, and gives the client a repeatable, low-risk release process for future site changes.
Turnaround from static site launch to full Laravel lead-gen rebuild
Conversion-tracking systems integrated pre-launch (GA4, Google Ads, Meta Pixel, reCAPTCHA)
Technology used
Key learnings
This project is a useful reminder that fast to launch and ready for paid traffic are not the same bar. A static template site can get a local service business online quickly and respectably, and for a business with no existing digital presence, that speed has real value. But the moment paid advertising enters the plan, the requirements change completely: an ad platform needs a verifiable conversion event to optimize bidding, the business needs a persistent record of every lead rather than a fire-and-forget contact form, and spam protection becomes essential to keep bot traffic from corrupting both the lead pipeline and the ad platform's conversion data. The roughly 24-hour turnaround between the two builds also illustrates a deliberate sequencing choice rather than a false start: getting a credible site live first, then replatforming onto real infrastructure before ad spend began, meant the client was never paying for clicks that arrived at a site incapable of capturing them properly. It is also worth being candid about scope. The visual design here rides on a licensed commercial template rather than a bespoke design system. The engineering value delivered, and the reason this case study exists, is the custom lead-generation backend, tracking integration, and deployment pipeline built around that template, not a from-scratch visual identity.
The original site was a static PHP marketing site built on a purchased template, which was enough to establish an initial web presence but had no database, no lead storage, and no way to track ad conversions. Once paid Google and Meta advertising moved onto the roadmap, that static foundation could not support it, so Arcetis rebuilt the site on Laravel 11 within about 24 hours to add the backend, lead-capture, and tracking infrastructure the ad campaign would depend on.
The site integrates GA4 for analytics, a Google Ads conversion pixel, and a Meta/Facebook Pixel, all tied to a dedicated thank-you page that fires each platform's conversion event once a lead has actually been captured. reCAPTCHA is layered onto the lead forms to keep bot submissions from distorting that conversion data.
No, and Arcetis is upfront about that. The visual front end is built on a licensed commercial HTML and Blade template designed for painting and wallpapering businesses. What is custom-built is everything running underneath and around it: the Laravel backend, the admin panel, the Quote and Lead data models, and the full conversion-tracking and deployment pipeline. This is best described as custom lead-generation engineering on a licensed template foundation, not a fully bespoke visual design.
No. A separate paid-advertising feasibility report, dated March 2026, modeled projected search demand, CPC, and cost-per-lead ranges for planning purposes, but it is explicitly scoped as pre-campaign research for investor use, with no guarantee of results expressed or implied. No paid campaign had launched at the time of writing, so this case study reports on delivered engineering scope, the rebuild, the tracking stack, and the CI/CD pipeline, not on ad performance.