Tracking QR Code referrals

Question

We were using a third party website to provide QR codes and track them, the only problem was one week their server went down for some time and effectively killed the QR code off as it was a dead link. As far as I could see their tracking was a simple redirect via their website.

I have set up a page with a javascript redirect to the destination URL with our Google analytics code in the page but was just wondering if anyone else has had any experience of setting up their own tracking/redirect for QR codes this way or have you done it differently?

Answer 1

The approach you've taken seems perfectly valid. The only note of caution I'd sound is that a lot of my client's analytics show that as much as 25% of mobile users have javascript disabled (could be turned off, could be an incapable browser).

Because of this, when I've done QR campaigns, I've setup an obfuscated unique URL i.e. domain.com/hb32b4 and used server log file analysis to produce the analytics (there are plenty of freeware or cheap tools available on download.com).

Comparing the log analysis with javascript tracking shows greater accuracy. It's also lighter on the front end, given the bandwidth constraints on mobile networks in major cities, weight can be an important success factor in mobile campaigns and this is especially true for campaigns targeting transit hubs.