How to share a survey via QR code without losing responses

A QR code is the most direct way to take someone from a physical space (a poster, a table, a slide) to a digital survey, without them having to type a URL by hand. The problem usually isn't technical — it's using the wrong QR for the context, which is what actually causes lost or misattributed responses.

Two kinds of QR, two different use cases

SurvIQ generates QR codes from two places: one for the survey's general public link (the same for everyone who scans it), and one per contact inside a distribution panel, tied to a personalized link with its own tracking identifier. Using the wrong one for the context is the most common cause of lost responses or responses attributed to the wrong person.

When to use the general QR

For any one-to-many distribution — a poster at an event, a presentation slide, a printed flyer — the right QR is the survey's general link. Everyone who scans it enters through the same link, with no need to generate a separate code per person.

How to generate it

From the survey's Distribution section, the share-by-QR button opens a modal with the code already generated from the public link, ready to download as a high-resolution PNG image, sharp enough to print.

When to use a specific contact's QR

If the survey is part of a distribution panel with identified contacts (following up with specific customers with progress reminders, for example), each contact has their own QR tied to their personalized link. Using that individual QR on a mass channel breaks the per-contact tracking: every response coming through it would get attributed to a single person.

The most common mistake

Generating one specific contact's QR and putting it on a physical poster or sharing it on social media, thinking it's "the survey's QR". The result is dozens or hundreds of responses attributed to a single person in the panel, on top of the personalized link possibly having single-use restrictions that don't apply to the general link.

After printing or publishing the QR

Since the QR always points to the survey's current link, there's no need to reprint anything for minor in-survey changes (rewording a question, adjusting the visual theme). You only need to regenerate it if the survey is unpublished or replaced with a new one at a different URL.