What a scan actually tells you — and what it does not

[admin]

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.