How to Track QR Codes in Google Analytics (GA4) with UTM Parameters

The eternal frustration of print advertising is the attribution black hole. You spend money on a direct mail campaign, your website traffic spikes the following week, and you cannot definitively prove a connection. With QR codes and UTM parameters, that problem is solved. Every scan becomes a trackable click: attributable to a specific campaign, channel, and creative.

Why QR scans show up as "direct" traffic

Without tags, a visit from a QR code arrives with no referrer: the phone's camera opened the link, not another website. GA4 therefore files it under (direct) / (none), mixed in with people who typed your address or used a bookmark. That's why a print campaign can look like it did nothing in analytics. UTM tags are what separate those visits out.

What are UTM parameters?

UTM parameters (Urchin Tracking Module) are tags appended to a URL that tell analytics platforms like Google Analytics 4 exactly where a visitor came from. They look like this:

When a visitor arrives via this URL, GA4 records the session as coming from source "flyer", medium "qr", campaign "summer2026", providing clear attribution in your reports.

The five UTM fields explained

• utm_source: where specifically the traffic came from. For print campaigns: flyer, poster, business-card, packaging.
• utm_medium: the channel type. For QR codes, use qr or print.
• utm_campaign: the campaign name: use something meaningful, like summer-sale-2026 or product-launch-q3.
• utm_term: optional, used for paid search keyword tracking and rarely needed for QR campaigns.
• utm_content: optional, differentiates between multiple creatives in the same campaign, e.g. red-banner vs blue-banner for A/B testing.

Setting up UTM in ScanOrbit

1. Open a URL QR code in your ScanOrbit dashboard (or create a new one).
2. Scroll to the UTM Parameters section (available on Pro and Business plans).
3. Fill in utm_source, utm_medium, and utm_campaign at minimum.
4. Save. ScanOrbit automatically appends the parameters to the destination URL on every scan: you don't need to modify the URL itself.

On the Free plan, you can get the same result by adding the tags to the link yourself: paste the full tagged URL (for example from the free UTM builder) as your QR code's destination. The built-in UTM fields simply save you building the URL by hand, and let you change the tags later without touching the link.

The help center has a full UTM setup guide with field-by-field instructions and naming convention recommendations.

Viewing QR traffic in GA4

In Google Analytics 4, navigate to Reports → Acquisition → Traffic Acquisition. Change the primary dimension to Session source / medium. Look for entries like flyer / qr or poster / print.

To see campaign-level data, add a secondary dimension for Session campaign or use Reports → Acquisition → Traffic Acquisition and filter by your campaign name.

For a deeper view, use Explore → Free Form exploration and combine session source, medium, campaign, and conversion events to build a full attribution report.

UTM naming conventions that don't break

The biggest UTM mistake marketers make is inconsistent naming. GA4 is case-sensitive, so QR, qr, and Qr create three separate entries in your reports. Establish these rules before your first campaign and document them:

• Always lowercase: utm_medium=qr, never utm_medium=QR
• Use hyphens, not underscores or spaces: summer-sale, not summer_sale or summer sale
• Use dates in campaigns: product-launch-2026-q3 is searchable years later
• Keep sources descriptive: manchester-flyer is more useful than just print

Common use case examples

For marketing-specific QR code strategy including retargeting pixels and A/B testing, see the marketing campaigns use case guide. And the QR code analytics guide covers what the ScanOrbit dashboard shows you alongside your GA4 data.