Tracking Attribution for QR Codes.

While QR codes are a great way to encourage users to visit a webpage or download a mobile application, it can be difficult to track how effective your QR codes across different mediums are.

Today, we want to explain how we setup QR Code attribution so you can measure which QR Codes are giving you the best results so you can confidently double down on your offline marketing spend.

The key challenges are:

• Dynamic Routing. Create a QR code that can be dynamically routed for future use, so in case you want to change the QR Code to point to a different website or a new version of your app, you can do so.
• Tracking & Attribution. Create and track different QR codes so you can see which are most effective.

The tools we are going to use are:

• Google Analytics Campaign URL Builder
• QR Code Generator

You'll need to also have your own domain set up, and we recommend using a subdomain such as https://get.yourwebaddress.com, where you development team can then:

1. Add a small script that detects the device and sends iOS users to the App Store and Android users to the Google Play Store.
2. Install the Google Analytics Universal Tracking snippet.

In regards to the script for redirection, here's one your team can use, just remember to replace the links to your own App Store and Google Play links.

<script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

<script>
    $(document).ready(function (){
        if(navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase().indexOf("android") > -1){
            window.location.href = 'YOUR GOOGLE PLAY LINK';
        }
        if(navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase().indexOf("iphone") > -1){
            window.location.href = 'YOUR APP STORE LINK;
        }
    });
</script>

You'll then need to create a unique campaign url for each QR code you want to have.

Key information.

• Website URL. Use the exact web address you chose above as your subdomain, and be sure to include "https://"
• Campaign Source. This you can simple have as "qr"
• Campaign Medium. This for instance could be "leaflet" or "table stand" or "receipt", basically anywhere where your QR code will be placed.
• Campaign Name. If you are going to be operating in different geographic areas or have different campaigns, you can then use this field to specify the campaign name.

The Google Analytics Campaign URL Builder will then generate a URL that will have your original URL with an additional code after it in this format:

?utm_source=qr&utm_medium=[your-medium]&utm_campaign=[campaign-name]

To generate the unique QR:

1. Copy and paste the generated campaign URL.
2. Use the QR Code Generator to create a unique QR code
3. Save that as an SVG file and pass that to your design team to add to the correct offline marketing materials.

Voilà!  You can now track the effectiveness and number of scans of each of your different QR Codes!