A QR code is a link you can print. That makes it useful for offline marketing, and hard to measure. A poster on a notice board, a slide at a demo day and a card handed across a table all look the same to a scanner, and to a spreadsheet. The fix is simple: give each placement its own code, and count each one separately.
Give every placement its own code
The mistake most people make is printing one code everywhere. Then you know that someone scanned, but not where. Make one code per placement, and label it with where it will go: “Poster, main hall”, “Deck slide 12”, “Visiting card, booth 4”.
In Mitr, a QR campaign holds one destination and any number of codes. Each code is a placement, and each one gets its own count. The destination gets UTM tags added automatically, so the same numbers appear in your analytics.
Count scans and unique scans
Two numbers matter:
- Scans is every time a code is read.
- Unique scans counts a phone once in a short window. If a group of people scan the same poster while they wait, scans goes up and unique scans shows the real reach.
Read both. A high scan count with low unique scans tells you the code is being re-scanned, often because it’s hard to read or sits in a busy place.
Read the timing
When a code gets scanned matters as much as how often. A spike in the first hour of a session is a crowd that read the poster as they walked in. A steady trickle over three days is a placement that people see every day. Timing per placement tells you which is which, and which to move.
Check the rough location
Mitr shows the city and country of each scan, with no IP address stored and no cookie set. That’s enough to tell whether a local event pulled local people, without identifying anyone.
Set a rule before you print
Before you print a batch, decide three things:
- What counts as a good placement: a number of unique scans per day, say.
- How long you’ll test before moving a code: a week is usually enough.
- What you’ll change if a placement underperforms: the wording, the position, or the placement itself.
Then print, read the numbers after the test window, and move the codes that don’t work.
Test the code before you print
Scan each code with your own phone first, and check that it lands on the page you expect. A code that opens the wrong page, or a page that loads slowly on mobile, will undercount no matter how good the placement is.
Where to start
The QR code tracker explains what a campaign records, and the live demo makes a real code you can scan with your phone. The free plan is enough to test one campaign with three placements.
Frequently asked questions
How do I track which QR code gets scanned?
Give each placement its own code. A poster, a deck slide and a visiting card should each point to a separate short link. Each link counts its own scans, so you can see which placement works.
What is the difference between scans and unique scans?
Scans counts every time a code is read. Unique scans counts a phone once in a short window, so a group of people re-scanning the same poster doesn't inflate the number.
Do QR code trackers use cookies?
Mitr's QR tracker sets no cookies and keeps no IP addresses. It records the time, a coarse location and the device type of each scan.
Can I track a QR code for free?
Yes. The free plan includes one active QR campaign with up to three codes, and keeps scan history for 30 days.