NFC business cards explained, and when a QR code is better
How a tap card works, what it costs you in practice, where it fails, and why most people get more out of a printed code than out of a chip.
Read it →To track business card scans usefully, give each place its own tracked link: the printed batch, the conference stand, the email signature and the shop window. After a month the counts say which was worth doing again, and setting it up takes about five minutes.
Make one link per place, not per person
If every card you hand out carries the same code, you can count scans in total and learn nothing.
Open Links and QR and press Generate Tracked QR Code. Give it a name you will still recognise in six months, "Printed cards, box of 500" rather than "link 3", choose what it is for, choose where it should land, and save. The code and its picture appear at once in the list.
The seven purposes are labels that say where a link lives: the card itself, a printed card, an email signature, a social profile, an event, a wallet card, and something else. They are mostly for your own reading, though a couple are used by the product too: the wallet pass carries the Wallet card link in its scan code, and the signature builder and the call background make their own.
A sensible starting set is four links: printed cards, email signature, social profile, and the next event you are going to. An event planner or a florist working several venues a month might add one link per venue.
Choose where each one lands
A link can point at your card, at Save my contact so the contact file downloads immediately, at your card with WhatsApp open, at your website, or at a web address you choose.
Match the destination to the moment. At an event where people are walking past, Save my contact is often better than the card, because it asks for one press and gives something immediately. On a printed card, the card itself is right, because the person is sitting down with it later.
Everything except "a web address you choose" follows your card, so changing your card never leaves a printed code pointing at the wrong thing.
Read the counts honestly
Two places show them. The list on Links and QR gives each link its own count, and Analytics has a table of every link with its type, its destination, its clicks and the share of your views that clicked it.
Three cautions before you draw conclusions.
A scan is one request to the short link. We record the day and the code. We do not record who scanned it.
A chat app preview can count as one hit. Treat the first count on a freshly shared link with suspicion.
A scan is not a conversation. The number that matters is how many of those scans became somebody leaving their details in the Stay in touch form, which lands on your People screen.
The comparison that tells you something
Line up the four links after a month and ask two questions of each.
How many scans per card handed out? A printed batch of two hundred with twelve scans is a six per hundred rate, and now you have a number to improve. Saying what is behind the code when you hand it over is the usual fix.
How many of those scans left their details? If a code gets scanned a lot and the form is never filled, the card is being read and then closed. Look at what is above the fold: the save block and the form sit high on our cards deliberately, and a long list of services pushed above them buries the thing you wanted.
What to change first
- Low scans, good form rate. The card works; not enough people are scanning. Say the sentence when you hand it over, and make the code bigger.
- Good scans, low form rate. People are arriving and leaving. Check the first screen of the card on a real phone.
- Both low. The code may be failing: too small, too little contrast, or too close to the trim. The QR code guide covers all three.
- Both healthy. Print more, and give the next event its own link.
Turning a count into a second conversation
A scan tells you a place worked; it does not bring the person back. That is the job of what happens after the scan. Anyone who saves your card from the code can get card notifications from you later, so the forty people from the conference stand hear from you again next month. The WhatsApp add-on sends the automated follow-ups for you: a thank-you when the card is saved and another message a few days later. Pro is $0.99 a month, and you can then compare which place produced not only scans but replies.
Keep the codes you have printed
Deleting a link stops anything printed with that code from working, which is why the screen asks you to confirm. If a code is out in the world on paper, point it somewhere else rather than deleting it. The links and codes tab explains re pointing, and the privacy tab sets out exactly what is recorded and for how long. Your first four links take five minutes once you have a card: make your free card.
Questions people ask
Do you record who scanned my code?
No. The day and the code are recorded, never the person and never an address that identifies a device.
How many links should I make?
One for each place you hand your card out. That is the whole point: two places sharing a link cannot be told apart afterwards.
Can I change a link's destination after printing?
Yes, and that is what the link is for. The ink stays the same; only the landing changes.
Where do the people who filled the form go?
To your People screen, where you can search them and export them. The people and leads tab covers what is kept and who may export it.