What is a QR Code?
A QR code (or Quick Response code) is just a digital representation of some information that is easy for a smartphone to read.
For Donation Point Go, we take your campaign URL (something like https://dpgo.io/<your-campaign>) and convert it into a QR code to make it easy for your donors to find your campaign page without needing to type it into their web browser. Of course your donors can still type the URL directly, or you can link to the campaign directly using the URL from an email, your social media page, or your website.
Note: a URL refers to a web link, it means "Uniform Resource Locator".
For example, the following QR code is for our demo Helping Hand campaign:
The "Powered by Donation Point Go" text and logo should always be provided un-altered on all copies of your QR code.
You may wish to use the version of your QR code either with or without your logo in the centre. Removing your logo may make the QR code easier to scan, especially at longer distance.
Depending on the type of advertising you may wish to include some additional help information alongside your QR code. The best strategies and options for this are provided below.
Where to use your QR code
BILLBOARD
VIDEO
WEB
Billboard Advertising
QR codes presented on billboards should always be in full colour.
You should scale your QR code based on the average distance away the donor will be when scanning. A good rule of thumb is to divide the average distance by 30 to come to an appropriate QR code scale. For example, at 30 meters, a 1 meter QR code will be easily scannable by zooming with a phone camera.
At larger distances, you may wish to increase the size of the white border around the QR code, as additional contrast will make the code easier to scan.
We recommend providing your campaign URL alongside your QR code to make it easy for donors that cannot scan your QR code, for example: "Scan or visit https://dpgo.io/<your-campaign> to donate".
Print Advertising
For print media, the QR code can be presented either in colour or in black & white.
For magazines or where the donor can easily move the camera right up to the QR code, we recommend ensuring that the dimensions of the QR code itself are at least 4cm square.
For posters or where the donor will need to scan the QR code from a distance, we recommend scaling the QR code up relative to the viewing distance. 10cm square for smaller posters or 20cm square for larger posters is appropriate.
TV and Streaming Advertising
QR codes on television or web stream should always be in full colour.
When displaying your QR code as part of a television program or telethon, you should scale the QR code to roughly 20% of the total height of the video. For example, on a 1080 video your QR code should be 216px square, while for a 4k video your QR code should be 768px square.
Rather than presenting any additional help information alongside the QR code as part of the video, we instead recommend including some basic instructions as part of the content.
Web Advertising (including Social and Email)
For web advertising, the QR code should always be shown in full colour.
Generally most web advertising is consumed in close proximity to the screen. We recommend making your QR code 240px square which will make it easy for a donor to scan your QR code from their computer monitor.
Because your donors are already online, you should always provide a hyperlink to your campaign URL directly alongside your QR code so that they can easily tap your hyperlink rather than scanning the QR code (this is especially important if they're already on their phone!) In fact, you may wish to hide the QR code entirely if viewed on a mobile device and instead provide a hyperlink only.
Your hyperlink must link to your full campaign URL (including the https:// bit), but the visual text you use could either be the full URL (such as https://dpgo.io/<your-campaign>), a shortened representation of your URL (such as dpgo.io/<your-campaign>), or other appropriate text such as "Click here to donate now!"
Helping your donors use QR codes
When presenting your QR code, you may wish to provide additional information to assist them with scanning the QR code. Here are some suggestions for how you might assist your donors depending on the environment:
How to Donate
You can provide instructions alongside the QR code that makes it easy for new donors to understand how to scan your QR code. These instructions could be printed next to the QR code directly, or read out by a presenter in the case of TV and streaming based advertising.
- Scan the QR code with your phone camera or use the scanner at dpgo.io
- Tap on the link that appears
- Make your donation
The QR code pack that you receive for your campaign will include a complete example of this ready to go.
Your Campaign URL
You can provide a direct link to your campaign. You should always do this in web advertising (by using a hyperlink), but this can also be helpful if your QR code may be difficult to scan.
Your campaign URL is https://dpgo.io/<your-campaign> however you may wish to shorten it to dpgo.io/<your-campaign> to make it easier for a donor to type it into their phone.
When using your campaign URL in a hyperlink, always ensure you use the full https:// version as otherwise your hyperlink will not work.
Learn more about how Donation Point Go can help your fundraising efforts
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Address: 227 Burwood Road, Hawthorn, Australia 3122