Scan counts are more slippery than they look. Worth knowing what is behind the number before you make a decision with it.
What a scan can tell you
That a redirect was served, with a timestamp
Device, browser and operating system, from the request
Roughly where from — see the tier note below
Which code, so you can compare placements against each other
What it cannot tell you
Whether a human saw anything. A request is not a person.
What happened next. Whether they read the menu, followed the account, or bought something happens beyond the redirect.
Who they are. No identity comes attached to a scan, and any claim otherwise should worry you.
The bot problem, and why the number you want is smaller
Not every request is a person with a phone. Link previews from messaging apps fetch the destination to build a thumbnail. Security scanners follow links in email. Crawlers wander. Paste a code's link into a group chat and you can generate a dozen "scans" before a human sees it.
We classify traffic rather than counting every request equally, and separate engaged scans from automated ones. It means our headline number is often lower than a raw request count — which is the point. A number that flatters you is not useful for deciding where to put the next sign.
This matters most when comparing placements. A code shared in a chat group and a code on a shop window collect very different proportions of automated traffic, and comparing their raw totals will mislead you.
Location, honestly
Location comes from IP address, which is an approximation — it can be off by a city, and a VPN moves it entirely. Treat it as a regional signal, never as where someone physically stood.
Depth of location detail depends on plan: the full city-level breakdown and scan map are on Advanced, and the free trial includes a taste of it. Starter and Pro show top countries rather than the full city map.
A practical way to use the numbers
Compare like with like, over the same period: same code, two placements. Absolute totals mean little; the difference between two placements of the same code is a real signal you can act on.
