Improving flexibility in a HubSpot event landing page template using ACF and PHP

Overview
For a client’s marketing event landing page, our development team enhanced a custom WordPress template to provide greater flexibility for managing event-specific content. The updates included dynamic date range functionality, conditional visibility for certain sections, customizable call-to-action (CTA) labels, and layout ordering options — all while maintaining clean code structure and reusability through Advanced Custom Fields (ACF).

These refinements ensured that the marketing team could easily adapt the page for future events, such as HubSpot Inbound, without requiring new development work each time.

Issue background
The original event template was designed for a single-instance event and lacked flexibility for recurring or multi-day events. Marketing stakeholders requested several updates to accommodate upcoming campaigns:

• Allow the event date to display as a range (e.g., “Sep 3–5, 2025”).
• Provide the option to remove the “Event Info” section, which contained title, content, and CTA fields.
• Enable customization of the “Register Now” CTA in the “Speaking Session” section to say “Add to your schedule.”
• Add an option to reorder sections, specifically allowing the “Speaking Session” section to appear after the “Callout” (three-panel) section.

Because the page was built using flexible content fields in ACF, changes had to be implemented carefully to maintain compatibility across other pages using the same template.

Diagnosis
Our developers reviewed the site’s structure and identified that the Fast Forward Event Template used several ACF flexible content layouts that were tied together in the theme’s PHP files.

The limitations stemmed from hard-coded logic and field dependencies within the ACF group titled Templated Page - Fast Forward Event Page. Any modification risked affecting existing pages using the same structure.

Additionally, during development, an ACF import/export bug prevented direct migration of updated field groups — requiring a manual recreation of fields to avoid blocking deployment.

Resolution steps

1. Extended the event date field logic: Updated ACF fields and PHP template logic to support single or range-based date inputs.

   if ($start_date && $end_date) {
       echo esc_html(date('M j', strtotime($start_date)) . '–' . date('j, Y', strtotime($end_date)));
   } else {
       echo esc_html(date('M j, Y', strtotime($start_date)));
   }
   

2. Added conditional rendering for the Event Info section: Introduced a simple toggle field in ACF that allows marketers to show or hide the Event Info block entirely.
3. Customizable CTA text: Modified the CTA fields in the “Speaking Session” flexible layout to allow the button label to be edited directly in the admin — replacing static text with a dynamic ACF field (cta_button_label).
4. Reordered flexible layout options: Updated template logic to detect admin-selected section order, allowing the “Speaking Session” layout to appear after the “Callout” section when desired.
5. Addressed ACF import issue: Due to an ACF bug preventing import of updated field groups, developers manually recreated the new field configurations to preserve functionality and prevent data loss.
6. QA and staging validation: All updates were tested on a dedicated staging environment, ensuring full compatibility with other pages using the same layout. The site’s marketing team reviewed and approved the changes before deployment.

Final outcome
After deployment, the event landing page became fully flexible and future-proof. The marketing team can now manage content for multi-day events, hide or show sections as needed, and customize CTAs — all from within WordPress, without requiring code changes.

The final result streamlined event setup workflows while maintaining consistent branding and design integrity.

Key takeaways

• ACF flexible content provides scalable control for marketing teams when paired with careful PHP logic and conditional rendering.
• Customizable CTAs and layouts can be implemented safely without affecting other pages using shared templates.
• Testing on staging ensures safe deployment, especially when ACF import/export inconsistencies arise.

Need to enhance your WordPress templates for better marketing flexibility?
👉 Contact Freshy to see how our team can optimize your ACF setups and streamline your content workflows.