Tracked codes
Change where a tracked QR code goes, schedule it, limit or protect it, send devices and countries to different places, and see its scans.
Agoo is in early access. This page describes the feature as it ships to early-access organisations; screens are illustrative.
A tracked code holds a short link, such as https://agoo.click/7KQ2XP4, instead of its content. When someone scans it, Agoo decides where to send them. That's what lets you change it after it's printed and count its scans.
What scanning does
Codes that send people somewhere, such as a website, WhatsApp, a phone call or a PDF, go straight there. Contact cards, events and text open a small page with your organisation's name, where people save the contact or add the event to their calendar.
If a code can't open, people see why, never an error:
| They see | When |
|---|---|
| This code is paused | You paused it |
| This code isn't live yet | It's waiting for approval, or its schedule hasn't started |
| This code has ended | It's archived, it was turned down, or its schedule has ended |
| This code has reached its limit | It has had as many scans as its scan limit |
| A password form | It asks for a password |
To change where a code goes, open it and choose Change. Every printed copy follows straight away.
Controls
On Growth and above, or with the Advanced QR add-on, a tracked code's page has Controls. Changes apply to every printed copy straight away.
- When it works: a From and an Until date and time, for an event's poster or a limited offer. Before and after, scanning says the code isn't live yet, or has ended.
- Scan limit: after this many scans, it says it has reached its limit. Useful for a one-off voucher.
- When a code reaches its Until date or its scan limit, its owner is emailed once (the Owners and Admins, for a code whose maker has left), so a code still on a wall doesn't quietly stop working. Changing the date or the limit starts the watch again.
- Password: people enter it before the code opens, 4 to 64 characters. Only for codes that send people somewhere. Agoo keeps only a scrambled form of the password, so nobody can read it back: if you forget it, set a new one.
- Campaign tags: added to the link as
utm_source,utm_medium,utm_campaign,utm_termandutm_content, so your website's analytics shows which poster or flyer brought people.
Rules (Pro)
On Pro and Enterprise, Rules send people somewhere else by device or country: iPhone and iPad, Android, any phone, any tablet, or computers, and a two-letter country code such as GH. The first rule that matches wins; anyone else goes to the code's own destination. A code can have up to 20 rules. For example, send iPhones to your App Store page and everyone outside Ghana to your international site.
Scans
A tracked code's page shows its scans for the Last 7 days, Last 30 days, Last 90 days or Last 12 months:
- Scans: scans of the live code, with the total since it was made.
- Different scanners: each scanner is counted once a day, without keeping who they are (below).
- Not let through: scans while it was paused, not live, ended, over its limit or waiting for a password.
- Scans each day, When people scan (by weekday and hour, on your organisation's clock), Countries, Cities, Devices, and Systems and browsers.
QR codes shows each tracked code's total scans, and your organisation's scans over the last 30 days.
Scans of all your tracked codes also appear in Reports for the same period, with the codes scanned most, and in scheduled report emails for people who can see every code. Home shows today's scans.
Export a code's scans as CSV or Excel, one row a scan: when, the country, region and city, the device, system, browser and language, whether it was a new scanner that day, and what happened. Each export is recorded in the audit trail.
How far back you can see
What you see follows your plan's visitor history: 3 months on Free, 12 months on Starter, 24 months on Growth, up to 5 years on Pro, and as agreed on Enterprise. Older scans are kept, hidden, and come back when you move to a plan with a longer history.
Scans are kept for 2 years by default, then deleted automatically. Change this with QR code scans in Console → Settings → Data & privacy, within your plan's maximum. See Retention and deletion.
What's recorded about people who scan
People who scan your codes never chose to use Agoo, so a scan records as little as it can:
- No IP address, ever. Cloudflare, which runs the short link, uses the connection only while it answers the scan.
- Location is the country, region and city that Cloudflare works out from the network, never GPS. It's often only the nearest big town, and sometimes unknown.
- Device, system, browser and language come from what the phone's browser says about itself.
- A daily scanner code: a one-way code made from the connection, the browser and the date, so the same person scanning twice in a day counts once. It changes every day, so nobody can follow a person from one day to the next, and it doesn't identify anyone. It isn't in exports.
- Passwords are kept only in a scrambled form.
Plain codes record nothing: scanning one never reaches Agoo.
Your organisation is the controller of scan data and Agoo processes it for you, as for visitor data. Mention QR scans in your privacy notice if you use tracked codes. See Data protection.
Codes must be safe to scan
QR codes and short links that lead to malware, phishing, scams or unlawful content break the acceptable use policy. We may disable such links, and we tell you when we do.
Design and downloads
Style your QR codes, test that they scan, download them for screens and print, save brand templates and make many codes from a spreadsheet.
Who makes codes
Choose who in your organisation can make QR codes, give them allowances, approve tracked codes before they go live and ask for brand templates.