Start with a trackable destination
Tracking begins before the card is printed, with where the card points. Send scanners to a specific page that completes one action — your booking page, a landing page for the offer — not your generic homepage. A focused destination is both easier for the reader and easier to measure.
Put a QR code on every card
A QR code turns a scan into a counted event, and if the code is unique to each recipient it tells you which specific person responded, not merely that someone did. A printed personal URL — a web address unique to each recipient — does the same job for the people who would rather type than scan.
With CardCadence, every postcard design ships with a QR code, and it resolves to a link unique to the person it was mailed to, so you get individual-level attribution without building the plumbing yourself. CardCadence does not print a personal URL on the card, which is worth knowing for one reason: you are counting scans. The customer who reads your card and simply phones you is a real response the QR will never record. Treat your scan count as a floor, not the whole picture.
Tag the link with UTM parameters
If you use a web analytics tool like Google Analytics, add UTM parameters to the destination link (a source, a medium, and a campaign name). That makes postcard traffic show up clearly in your analytics, separated from search and social, so the drop lives in the same dashboard as the rest of your marketing.
Watch three numbers
You don't need a dozen metrics. Three carry most of the weight. Scans tell you raw engagement. Response rate (responses divided by cards mailed) tells you how well the drop performed relative to its size. Cost per response (campaign cost divided by responses) tells you what each result actually cost.
Know those three for each drop and you can compare offers, sizes, and lists honestly — keeping what wins and dropping what doesn't.
Close the loop and iterate
Tracking only pays off if you use it. After each drop, look at the numbers, form one hypothesis ("the stronger offer drove more scans"), and test it on the next drop. Over a few cycles, that loop turns mail from a hopeful expense into a tuned, repeatable channel.
Because every CardCadence card is trackable and pricing is per-piece, the cost of running these small, measurable experiments stays low — and the learning compounds.