Engagement5 min read

Find Out Which Sign Actually Works

Most businesses put up one sign, see no obvious change, and conclude QR codes do not work. Usually the code was fine and the spot was wrong - and with a single code there is no way to tell those apart.

The fix is unglamorous: give each placement its own code.

Set it up

1

One code per placement

In In person, add a touchpoint for each spot you are testing - all pointing at the same page. Three is a sensible number to start with.

2

Name them like a human

“Tents on the window tables” beats “Code 2”. In a month you will be reading these and trying to remember which was which.

3

Set the placement

Table tent, counter card, window, receipt, NFC tag. This groups the numbers so you can compare a kind of placement, not just one piece of card.

4

Leave it alone for a month

Resist checking on day three. A restaurant has good weeks and quiet ones, and a fortnight of rain will tell you a window sticker does not work when what it actually tells you is that it rained.

Reading the result

Scan performance shows three steps per touchpoint: scanned, opened, got in touch. The gaps are the interesting part.

  • Few scans. The placement is wrong, or nothing tells people what the code is for. A bare square gets ignored.
  • Scans but few opens. Almost always a bad signal spot - a basement, a thick-walled back room. People scanned and gave up waiting.
  • Opens but nobody gets in touch. The code and the spot are doing their job. The page is the problem.
Tip: The most common winner is dull: beside the card reader. Paying is dead time, the phone is often already out, and the interaction has just finished well.

Then move the loser

Take the worst placement and move it somewhere else. You do not need a new code - it keeps its name and its history, so you can see whether the move helped. And because a code can be repointed, you can also send that same printed card at a different page entirely without reprinting it.

Warning: A Google review code shows scans and nothing after them. Its destination is Google's and we cannot see past that hop, so compare review codes with each other rather than against a code that opens a page of yours.