Case Study

How Ankerberg Theological Research Institute Unified Three WordPress Sites into a Single HubSpot-Powered Ministry Hub

Challenge

Ankerberg Theological Research Institute (ATRI) is a long-standing faith-based media ministry known for The John Ankerberg Show, offering theological teaching, digital resources, and television programming to a global audience. Over the years, as their digital presence expanded organically, it became clear that their web infrastructure no longer reflected the professionalism or depth of their content.

By early 2024, ATRI’s digital ecosystem had become fragmented across three separate WordPress sites hosted on different servers. Each site used its own theme and plugins, which led to inconsistent branding and a disjointed experience for visitors. Users often felt like they were navigating multiple unrelated websites, which hurt engagement and hindered the ministry's goals of increasing donations and resource purchases.

Behind the scenes, the team struggled with inefficiencies. Content updates required coordination across multiple vendors and platforms, and even small changes were developer-dependent. Moreover, HubSpot was underutilized, offering limited insight into how visitors moved through the content and interacted with donation or store pages.

The existing WooCommerce store also looked and behaved separately from the rest of the digital experience, weakening the connection between ATRI's teaching and its resource offerings. The organization needed a modern, centralized digital presence that could support their ministry efforts with clarity and consistency.

Solution

No Bounds Digital approached the project in clearly defined phases to reduce risk and ensure alignment with ATRI’s mission and goals.

1. Discovery and Strategy:
The team conducted a full audit of ATRI’s digital content and analytics, mapping out visitor behavior, drop-off points, and high-value content. A topic-based content structure was introduced, designed to unify teaching series, articles, and resources in an intuitive format.

2. Experience Design:
Wireframes and prototypes were developed for essential pages, including the homepage, donate page, blog, and resource listings. The visual design emphasized readability and authority with clean typography and a restrained color palette. Conversion pathways such as “Donate” and “Shop Resources” were integrated throughout the design to drive action without being intrusive.

3. HubSpot Development:
A custom HubSpot theme was built, including over 15 reusable templates and modules. This gave ATRI the flexibility to build and manage content without developer support. The templates allowed consistent branding and layout across all pages, with modular components like quote blocks, scripture callouts, and CTA strips.

4. SEO-Protected Content Migration:
No Bounds migrated content from the three WordPress sites into HubSpot with SEO best practices. They implemented redirects and maintained content hierarchy to preserve search rankings while cleaning and formatting the content for consistency and accessibility.

5. Visual Redesign of WooCommerce Store:
Instead of a full ecommerce rebuild, No Bounds updated the store’s styling to match the new HubSpot site. This provided a seamless transition between teaching content and product pages without disrupting existing store functionality.

6. Testing and Enablement:
Rigorous testing ensured all forms, CTAs, and pages performed well across devices. After launch, No Bounds trained ATRI staff to manage and update the new HubSpot CMS, ensuring long-term maintainability.

Results

The Ankerberg Theological Research Institute (ATRI) engagement delivered a foundational shift from fragmented digital assets to a unified, HubSpot-powered platform. The transformation yielded immediate structural and operational wins:

A Single Digital Hub:
ATRI now operates one consolidated HubSpot CMS site instead of juggling three separate WordPress properties. The new site offers a consistent brand experience, centralized navigation, and unified structure—streamlining both visitor journeys and internal management.
Flexible and Scalable Content Management:
The ministry team can now publish new content, launch landing pages, and experiment with layouts using over 15 reusable templates and modules—without needing developer support. This increased publishing agility allows for quicker campaign execution and greater in-house control.
Improved Pathways from Content to Action:
Visitors are more effectively guided from watching a teaching or reading an article to taking meaningful next steps—like donating or purchasing a related resource. Clear, persistent calls-to-action and contextual linking between teaching and store content improved user experience and engagement.
Stronger Data and Engagement Visibility:
By consolidating content and engagement in HubSpot, ATRI can now monitor how specific content influences donations and product orders. The platform supports segmentation, testing, and optimization—empowering the ministry to build data-driven engagement strategies.
Handled Complex Challenges with Clarity:
The project navigated several key challenges:

- Successfully reconciled three disparate site structures into one intuitive, topic-based layout.
- Aligned the WooCommerce store visually with the new design while avoiding disruptive replatforming.
- Maintained a steady project pace with clear stakeholder review phases and staged content previews to meet high governance standards.