Put one QR code on five posters and you get one number. Put a different code on each poster, group them as placements of one campaign, and you get five numbers you can compare. That is QR code campaign tracking in AriaQR, and it takes about two minutes longer than making a single code.
Why does one code on five posters tell you nothing?
A single tracked code reports total scans, unique visitors, devices, and approximate location. What it cannot report is which physical copy of the code was scanned. Two posters in the same city look identical in the data. A leaflet in a shop and a sticker on the shop window resolve to the same network, the same hour, and the same phones.
So when the campaign ends and the number is 640 scans, you know the campaign worked. You do not know whether the train-station poster did the work and the other four were wallpaper. Next time, you print all five again.
Location data does not rescue this. It comes from the network address, it is city-level at best, and two placements a block apart are indistinguishable. The honest limits are laid out in QR code analytics explained. The only reliable way to tell placements apart is to give each one its own code.
How do placements work in AriaQR?
A placement is a code that belongs to a campaign. You make the first code as usual: pick the image, pick the destination, let it verify, download. Then you add placements to it. Each placement is a distinct code with its own short link, pointing at the same destination, usually with the same artwork. You name each one for where it will go.
The dashboard's Placements screen lists them side by side with scans and unique visitors for each, so the comparison is a table rather than five tabs. Each placement is a code in its own right, so its own map, device split, and hour heatmap are there when you want to go deeper on one.
Because every placement is dynamic, each one can be edited independently. If the poster at the venue needs to point at the venue's own page while the leaflets keep pointing at the campaign page, change one destination and leave the rest. Nothing is reprinted.
How should you name placements?
Name them for the question you will ask later, not for the file you exported. Good names identify the physical place or the channel and survive six months of forgetting.
- "Lobby poster A1", "Elevator card", "Receipt footer", "Window sticker, north entrance"
- "Trade-show booth", "Sponsor slide", "Lanyard insert"
- "Magazine, spring issue", "Direct mail, wave 2", "Packaging, 500 ml"
Avoid "Poster 1" through "Poster 5" unless you also keep a note of which is which. Avoid dates alone, because the campaign will run again. If two placements are the same object in two cities, put the city in the name and let the Where screen confirm it.
One more habit: make one placement called "Test" or "Internal" and scan that one when you are checking prints. Your own scans then stay out of the real placements' numbers.
Do you need UTM parameters on a QR code?
Only if you also read web analytics. UTM parameters are the tags on the end of a link, such as utm_source and utm_campaign, that tools like Google Analytics use to group visits. A QR code that points at a plain link shows up in Google Analytics as direct traffic, which is where it disappears.
AriaQR can add UTM parameters to the destination for you, per placement, when you want them. Each placement then arrives in your web analytics with its own source and campaign values, and the split you see in the Placements table matches the split you see in your reporting. You do not type the tags by hand, and you do not end up with three spellings of the same campaign name.
If you do not use web analytics, leave UTMs off. The AriaQR dashboard already counts each placement on its own, and a shorter destination is one less thing to break.
How do you read the results?
Say a coffee roaster runs a spring campaign in two cities with five placements, and the numbers come back like this.
| Placement | Scans | Unique visitors | Top city |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cafe counter card | 412 | 198 | Portland |
| Bus shelter, downtown | 236 | 229 | Portland |
| Sponsor slide, conference | 88 | 84 | Denver |
| Magazine, spring issue | 61 | 59 | mixed |
| Window sticker | 19 | 17 | Portland |
Read it in three passes.
First, reach. Unique visitors is the number to rank by. The bus shelter reached more distinct people than anything except the counter card, and nearly every scan was a new person.
Second, repeat behavior. The counter card has twice as many scans as visitors, which is normal where people come back, and it means the destination is being reused, perhaps a loyalty page. Do not read it as twice the audience.
Third, place and effort. The window sticker did almost nothing. Before dropping it, check its Where screen: if its few scans came from another city, someone photographed it and it traveled. Check its Devices screen too. A sticker at eye level on glass is scanned by walk-ups, so if every scan is desktop, the sticker was never scanned at all and the link was shared some other way.
The conference slide is small but efficient: 84 people from one room. That is the kind of result that only shows up when the slide has its own code. What to expect from large outdoor placements is in QR codes on billboards and print ads.
When you want the numbers in your own tool, the CSV export includes the placement for every scan.
Where to start
Take the campaign you are about to print. List every place the code will appear. Make one AriaQR code, add a placement per place, name each for the place, and download the set. Turn on UTMs if your web analytics matters, and set a first-scan alert on each placement so you know the moment a poster goes live. Read the results by unique visitors first. Accounts are optional, and signing in keeps every campaign in one list; for repeat campaigns, see pricing.