Marcom pros debate the practicality of QR Codes, but they provide an easy, low-cost method for measuring call-to-action performance on print collateral. For starters, typing URLs into your phone’s web browser is so 1990s. It’s much easier for your target audience members to scan a code to be sent directly to your landing pages. The trick is to make the URL trackable.
Creating QR Codes
If you do a search for “create qr code,” you’ll get a lot of links to websites that will create QR codes for you. Just enter your URL, click a button and download your QR image. The marketing experts at HubSpot recommend Kaywa and GOQR.me.
Kaywa offers free and paid versions of its service. The paid version includes analytics and the monthly fee increases with the number of QR codes you want to track. Also with a free option, GOQR.me charges a one-time fee to create a QR code with your company’s logo incorporated into the design.
If you’re like me and use Ubuntu Linux, the Qreator app is easy to use and free. You can create QR codes for URLs, text messages, geo locations and WiFi networks. This is my preferred QR app, but you can also find QR code generators for Windows and Apple computers online.
Making the Link
Marcom professionals know that each inbound traffic opportunity is too valuable to waste on the website’s home page. First impressions are important, especially in the short-attention-span internet age. You’ll have only seconds to capture the visitor’s attention when she lands on your page.
This is why marcom pros develop landing pages that tie the content and imagery of the channel (email solicitation, printed flier, PPC ad, etc.) into the landing page. We want to create the mental connection between the CTA and LP so the prospective buyer is well-oriented as soon as she arrives.
Making the Link Trackable
A unique landing page will have a unique URL. However, this creates a problem for QR codes. Marcom pros often create landing pages in subdomains or subdirectories that create long URLs, and long URLs create complicated QR codes. This is especially true if you want to track URLs with source variables (like acct.com/long-landing-page-URL-001/?src=variablegoeshere).
Fortunately, the answer to this problem also provides a solution for tracking website traffic: URL shortening service bit.ly. Simply copy your long, complicated landing page URL and paste it into bit.ly’s form. Bit.ly will spit out a short URL that you can edit. The system will let you know if the edited URL is taken, so you might need to be creative to keep it short while also having something easy to remember. For example, my shortened URL to bit.ly is http://bit.ly/2bitly because http://bit.ly/bitly was unavailable.
The stats bit.ly offers are basic, but valuable. The system shows you the number of clicks from your bit.ly link, the number of clicks for all bit.ly links leading to the same URL and the number of times the URL was saved in bit.ly’s system.
Tracking the number of clicks from your shortened URL into your landing page can inform you about which content approaches generate the most interest. Pairing this with Google Analytics Goals will enable you to see how well this traffic is converting into sales, newsletter subscriptions or other actions.
Use Source Variables to Avoid Duplicate Content
Let’s say you want to use QR codes to drive traffic to your mobile donation form. Your donation appeal is relatively standard across all print media, leaving you with no need to have a unique form for each category of print collateral. You like this approach because you don’t want to suffer SEO penalties for duplicate donation pages on your website.
If you use a donation system like Qgiv, it includes a feature for tracking donation sources. The idea is that you should know if an email you sent last week is generating more donations than the email you sent last month. You can track content performance based on number of donations, amount of donations and average donation size to inform you about what issues your donors respond to.
Qgiv’s feature for source tracking is called assocInfo. You can pass a variable from your URL into an embedded donation form using PHP code. If you want to track traffic from your brochure, for example, to your donation page, here are the steps.
Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Trackable QR Codes
1. Embed your Qgiv donation form into a secure page on your website using the following code:
<?php $val=$_GET['src']; echo "<iframe src=https://secure.qgiv.com/for/acct&assocInfo=$val frameborder=0 width=615 height=1600></iframe>"; ?>
2. Paste a trackable URL into bit.ly’s system.
You can make your donation source trackable by simply appending a code to your URL. Assuming your donation form is located at acct.com/donate/ and following the PHP code convention in the previous step, use “src” to define the code variable that the PHP code will pass into the donation form.
For example, paste https://acct.com/donate/?src=brochure2014a into bit.ly and edit the shortened link to something like bit.ly/br14a. Now you have a trackable URL specifically for your brochure. Use a different “src” code to track fliers, pull-up banners and other print collateral — each generating different bit.ly URLs and respective QR codes.
3. Paste the bit.ly URL into a QR code generator and test it.
Your shortened URL will make the QR code less dense. This makes it easier to read by QR code scanning apps, like Google Goggles. However, you should make sure it works by testing it on different mobile devices. If everything works, move to the next step.
4. Print your QR code on your collateral.
Use a large version of your QR code when designing your print collateral to ensure good quality. This doesn’t mean that your QR code needs to be huge on your collateral, but larger images scaled down typically print in higher quality than smaller images printed at scale.
Don’t make your QR code too small. I won’t go into detail about QR code size. QRStuff has two good articles on the subject here and here. After you size your code image, print it out with a high-quality printer and test it with various mobile devices. If it works and everything else looks good, move forward.
You should save your QR codes with file names that relate to its URL. Save your QR code to brochure14a as QRbrochure14a.png. This will help you keep all the different QR code image files in order and help prevent messing up your tracking program by mistakenly printing your flier QR code onto your brochure.
5. Measure and Adjust.
Once your codes start generating stats in bit.ly, you should see what print collateral pieces are generating website traffic. Using Google Analytics Goals, you should also see which of those pieces are generating traffic that converts.
Create monthly reports and share them with your team. This information can tell you what content motivates your audience and if some print collateral channels are worth the printing costs. You can adjust your strategy based on your findings to save money and improve conversion rates.
Do you use QR codes and URL shorteners?
What has been your experience with QR codes and URL shorteners? Do you love or hate QR codes? Do you think you’ll use the QR+bit.ly technique in the future? Tell me what you think in the comments below.
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