How to track QR code scans (without an app or ad platform)
Scan tracking works by routing scans through a redirect that counts them. Here's what you can measure and what you can't.
How scan tracking works
A phone camera opens the URL in the code. If that URL is a redirect you control, the redirect can increment a counter before forwarding. That is the entire mechanism. There is no way to track scans of a static code that points straight to a page, other than looking at that page's analytics.
What you can measure
Total scans per code, and by extension per placement: put a different code on each flyer batch, table, or shelf, and the counters tell you which placement earns its space. Timing is measurable too if the service records when scans happen.
What you can't measure honestly
Who scanned. A redirect sees a request, not a person. Services that promise demographics are guessing from IP addresses and user agents, which is both unreliable and increasingly a privacy liability. SwitchQR stores a counter and nothing about the scanner.
A simple experiment
Create three dynamic codes with the same destination and place them on three variants of the same flyer. After two weeks the scan counts are your A/B test, no analytics vendor required.