Tracking & Attribution
How TouchDrop tracks postcard performance, attributes conversions, and measures incremental lift from your direct mail campaigns.
QR Code Generation
Every postcard mailed through TouchDrop includes a unique QR code that links back to your store. This is how you track which recipients engage with your campaign.
Unique Per Recipient
Each recipient gets their own discount code (e.g. LM-CA-A1B2C3) and a unique QR code that encodes a tracking URL.
Tracking URL Format
The QR code points to a short tracking URL like touchdrop.com.au/t/LM-CA-A1B2C3 which records the scan and redirects to your store.
How codes are generated
Discount codes follow a simple format: your chosen prefix plus a unique random code. You can set a custom prefix per campaign (e.g. SAVE15), otherwise TouchDrop generates one automatically. Each code is unique to the recipient.
Scan Flow & Redirect
When a recipient scans the QR code on their postcard, here is what happens step by step.
1. Recipient scans the QR code
Their phone camera reads the QR code and opens the tracking URL in their browser.
2. Scan event is recorded
TouchDrop records the scan so you can see who engaged with your postcard.
3. Redirect to your store
The recipient is redirected to your Shopify store with the discount code automatically applied via the /discount/ URL path.
4. Analytics tracking included
The redirect URL includes UTM parameters so your direct mail campaigns show up in Google Analytics alongside your other channels.
Attribution Methods
TouchDrop uses two methods to attribute orders to your postcard campaigns. Both are checked automatically when you import order data.
Discount Code Match Direct
When a customer places an order using the unique discount code from their postcard, that order is directly attributed to the campaign. This is the strongest form of attribution.
Customer Email Match Influenced
If a customer who received a postcard places an order within the attribution window — even without using the discount code — the order is attributed as “influenced” by matching email address.
Attribution priority
Discount code matches take priority. If an order matches both a discount code and a customer email, it is attributed as a direct conversion, not counted twice.
Attribution Window
The attribution window defines how long after a postcard is delivered an order can still be attributed to that campaign.
Default: 60 days
By default, the attribution window is 60 days from the expected delivery date. This accounts for the time it takes for recipients to act on the postcard.
Configurable per campaign
You can adjust the window when creating or editing a campaign. Shorter windows give more conservative results; longer windows capture more late conversions.
How delivery is estimated
Expected delivery is calculated as the send date plus transit time (default 5 days for Australian mail). The attribution window starts from this estimated delivery date.
Holdout Testing
Holdout testing lets you measure the true incremental impact of your postcards by comparing recipients who received a card against those who did not.
What is a holdout group?
A holdout group is a percentage of your campaign audience randomly selected to not receive a postcard. These recipients are tracked (marked as “holdout”) but no card is printed. This lets you compare their purchase behaviour against recipients who did receive a card.
How recipients are assigned
You set a holdout percentage (e.g. 10%) when creating a campaign. Recipients are randomly assigned to the holdout group based on this percentage. The default is 0% — opt in to use this feature.
How lift is calculated
Lift = (Treatment Rate − Holdout Rate) / Holdout Rate × 100%
TouchDrop also calculates incremental ROAS: how much additional revenue the postcards generated compared to what would have happened without them.
Statistical significance
- Results marked as “statistically significant” when there’s 95%+ confidence the postcards drove real results.
- We recommend a holdout of at least 10% with 500+ total recipients for meaningful results.
Reading Your Reports
The campaign detail page and reports section show your tracking data. Here is what the key metrics mean.
Total Sent
The number of postcards actually printed and mailed (excludes holdout recipients).
QR Scans
How many times recipients scanned the QR code on their postcard. One recipient may scan multiple times.
Attributed Orders
Orders matched to this campaign via discount code or customer email within the attribution window.
Attributed Revenue
Total revenue from attributed orders. Shown separately for direct (discount code) and influenced (email match) attribution.
Conversion Rate
The percentage of mailed recipients who made an attributed purchase.
ROAS
Return on ad spend. Total attributed revenue divided by total campaign cost (postage + per-piece fees).
Exporting data
You can export attributed orders as a CSV from the campaign detail page. Includes order ID, customer email, revenue, discount code used, attribution method, and order date.
Common questions
How do I know the sales you attribute to a postcard would not have happened anyway?
From attribution alone, you do not, and no vendor can honestly tell you otherwise. Attribution tells you which orders are associated with a mailing; it cannot separate an order the card caused from one that was already coming. The only way to know the difference is a holdout: withhold a random slice of the eligible segment, mail the rest, and compare revenue between the two groups over the redemption window. That gap is the incremental number. Everything else is association.
How does TouchDrop match an order to a postcard?
Two ways. Each card carries a unique discount code tied to that recipient, and a QR code that resolves to a tracked link. Orders are matched inside a 60-day attribution window. Code redemption is the strongest signal because the code only exists on that one card; recognition matching catches recipients who bought without using the code or scanning.
Why is there no open rate or click rate?
Because there is no clickstream in a letterbox. Mail has no impression event and no open, which is genuinely a weaker feedback loop than email, and it is why the measurement discipline matters more here rather than less. QR scans give a partial signal, but most recipients who act never scan, so treat scans as a floor on response and never as the response rate.
How long do I have to wait before I know if a campaign worked?
Longer than a digital channel. Delivery alone runs to Australia Post's published 3-7 business days, and recipients act on mail over weeks rather than hours, which is why the attribution window is 60 days. Expect to read a campaign properly at the end of that window, not in the first few days.
Does a QR scan mean the postcard was delivered?
A scan proves delivery, but the absence of a scan proves nothing. Scanning is a minority behaviour, so scan counts are always well below the number of cards that actually landed. Use scans as confirmation that mail is arriving, not as a delivery rate.
What happens if a customer is in two campaigns at once?
Suppression handles it. There is a 45-day global suppression window after any send, and a rolling 90-day frequency cap of three pieces per recipient, so a customer cannot be mailed repeatedly because they qualified for several segments at the same time.
What do you do with my customer list?
Customer data is used to build the mailing audience, validate addresses and generate the per-recipient codes for your campaigns, and nothing else. It is not shared with other brands on the platform and not sold. Data handling follows the Australian Privacy Principles.
Can I compare direct mail against my email programme fairly?
Only with a holdout on both. Comparing a channel's reported ROAS against another channel's reported ROAS mostly compares attribution models. Independent benchmarking is more useful as a sanity check: the DMA/ANA Response Rate Report (2018) put house-list response at 9% against 4.9% for prospect lists, which is the pattern to expect, retention mail outperforming cold mail rather than mail beating email outright.
The ROI figures I've seen are from other categories, so how do I know direct mail works for mine?
ROAS varies by vertical, so treat any single figure, including ours, as context rather than a promise. The honest way to get a number you can trust is a small test on your own list with a holdout: mail a random slice, hold back a control, and compare the reorder rate of the two groups over the attribution window. That is your own number, not a benchmark borrowed from another store. For context, independent ANA/DMA data puts mail to an existing-customer house list at the highest-ROI end of the channel, and a win-back on the founders' own DTC brand returned 6.2x ROI, but the point is to measure on your own customers rather than inherit a figure from a different category.