“Can we just put a QR code on it?” comes up at almost every museum, zoo, and garden. It might be about a sign at the ticket line, a postcard for a membership drive, or the card a member shows at the gate. In an Altru shop those are two different jobs, and keeping them apart makes the rest of the decisions easier.
- QR codes that send someone somewhere. A visitor scans with their phone camera and lands on a page where they buy a ticket, join, renew, or donate.
- QR codes that identify something. The code is printed on a ticket or membership card, and staff scan it at the door so the visit counts against the right record.
Here’s how to approach each one, and where to check before you print anything.
Codes that send people to a purchase page
This is the easy one technically, since a QR code is just a URL in a different format. Any free or paid generator will make one. What matters is where it points and what happens after the scan.
Point it at a URL you control
Don’t encode a long Altru web form address directly into a code you’re about to print on 5,000 brochures. Web form URLs can change when a form is rebuilt or replaced, and a printed code can’t be updated. Point the code at a short, stable address on your own website (for example, yoursite.org/join) and redirect that to the current form. When the form changes, you update the redirect, not the print run.
Make sure the destination works on a phone
Everyone who scans a QR code is on a phone, often standing outside or in line with spotty signal. Before printing, scan your own code on a couple of different phones, on cellular data rather than staff Wi-Fi, and finish a real purchase. If the page is slow, needs pinching and zooming, or asks for more fields than someone will type with one thumb, the code will get scans and very few sales.
Track each placement separately
If a code on the parking lot sign and a code on the rack card both go to the same page, you won’t know which one worked. Add a campaign tag to each URL (UTM parameters are the usual approach) so your web analytics can split them out. Whether that source information makes it into Altru alongside the sale depends on how your checkout is set up, so test that before you promise anyone a report from it.
Good places to try first
- Signs at the admissions line, so people can buy while they wait instead of at the window.
- Exit signage and receipts, pointing to a membership page that explains how today’s admission compares to a year of visits.
- Donation boxes and exhibit labels tied to a specific fund or campaign.
- Event flyers and posters that go straight to that event’s date selection, rather than your homepage.
Codes on tickets and membership cards
This side is less about generators and more about what Altru prints and what your scanners can read. Altru can put a barcode on tickets and membership cards so staff can scan them at entry. Whether that barcode comes out as a traditional 1D barcode or a 2D code such as a QR code depends on the ticket and card layouts your organization uses, and on your printing setup.
We’d rather not guess at your configuration, so check three things:
- Your ticket and card layouts. Look at what’s printed today and confirm what format the code is in. If you aren’t sure what options your version supports, ask Blackbaud support or test a change in a non-production environment first.
- Your scanning hardware. Older laser scanners often read only 1D barcodes. Camera-based scanners and most phones read both. If you move to QR on tickets, make sure every entrance can read it.
- Screens, not just paper. Many visitors will show a ticket on their phone. Test scanning from a phone at full brightness and from a cracked screen, since both happen at the gate.
One caution: a QR code on a ticket isn’t a security feature on its own. Anyone can screenshot it and share it. What prevents reuse is a scan that checks the ticket against your records and flags one that has already been used. Confirm your scanning setup actually does that lookup (test by scanning the same ticket twice), and make sure staff look at the result. A scan nobody reads is decoration.
Printing tips that save a reprint
- Print codes at least about an inch square on handouts, and much larger on signs people will scan from a few feet away.
- Keep dark code on a light background with a clear margin around it. Inverted or low-contrast codes fail on some phones.
- Put a short line of text next to the code saying what happens: “Scan to buy timed tickets” beats a bare square.
- Print the short URL under the code for people who’d rather type it.
- Scan the final proof, not the design file, before approving the job.
Where Social Good fits
The weak point for purchase QR codes is usually the page they land on. Checkouts replaces Altru web forms with a branded, mobile-friendly checkout for tickets, memberships, and donations, with Apple Pay and Google Pay, and the transactions write back to Altru. That gives a QR code a destination built for someone holding a phone in a ticket line.
Quick answers
Does Altru generate QR codes for marketing?
Treat a marketing QR code as something you create outside Altru with any QR generator, pointing to a URL you manage. Altru’s role is the sale or record behind that page.
Should we use dynamic QR codes from a paid service?
They let you change the destination after printing, which is useful. A redirect on your own website does the same thing without a subscription that could lapse and break every printed code.
