How to Track QR Code Scans (and Know Which Flyer Worked)

Printing QR codes is easy. Knowing whether anyone scanned them is the harder part. If you put a code on a poster, a flyer, a table tent and your packaging, you want to know which one actually brings people to your page, so you can do more of what works.

How scan tracking works

A plain QR code is just a link turned into a picture. Scanning it opens the link, and nothing is counted anywhere.

A tracked QR code adds a tag to the link that says which code was scanned. When the page opens, it reads the tag and counts the scan against that code. On LiteLinks Pro, each QR code you create opens your page and keeps its own scan count, with up to 20 codes per page.

One code per placement

The trick is to make a separate code for each place it appears:

• Poster in the café window
• Flyers handed out at the market
• Sticker on the packaging
• Table tents
• Business cards

All of them can open the same page. Because each has its own count, you can see which placement drives scans. Name each code clearly when you create it, like "Market flyer, November", so the numbers make sense later.

What to compare

After a week or two, look at the scan counts side by side:

• Which placement gets the most scans? Print more of that.
• Which gets almost none? Look at why. Is the code too small, in a bad spot or missing a reason to scan?
• Scans compared with how many you printed. 40 scans from 50 table tents is a lot better than 40 scans from 2,000 flyers.

Make sure the code is easy to scan

A low count can mean people tried and failed to scan. Check:

• The code is big enough for the distance people stand from it
• It's dark on a light background
• There's empty space around it
• There's a line telling people what they'll get

Our guide to QR codes for print covers size, contrast and placement in detail.

Follow the visit after the scan

A scan only tells you someone arrived. To see what they did next, check which links on your page got tapped in the same period. If a poster says "Scan for tickets", the ticket link should get a jump in taps when the poster goes up. If it doesn't, put the ticket link at the top of your page.

Codes that last

Because each code opens your page rather than one fixed destination, you can change what's on the page without reprinting. When the event is over, swap the top link; the codes already out there keep working.

QR codes are part of LiteLinks Pro. Compare plans, or read how to read your link-in-bio analytics for the rest of your numbers.