Preferences have shifted significantly since the pandemic, with many consumers now favoring contactless experiences. To meet their needs, retailers have swapped cash for mobile payments, event organizers have traded paper tickets for scannable codes, and healthcare facilities have adopted digital check-ins.
Contactless solutions are not only safer, as was evident during the pandemic, but also more convenient. Customers no longer have to carry physical cash, run the risk of losing their event tickets, or spend too much time at reception waiting to check in.
But, while convenient, contactless experiences can feel disconnected—unless you build bridges with digital engagement solutions like short links and QR Codes.
Read on as we explore why and how to use digital engagement to create better contactless experiences.
Note: The brands and examples discussed below were found during our online research for this article.
What is the relationship between contactless experience and digital engagement?
If the growing adoption of solutions like QR Codes for in-store payments is anything to go by, contactless options are here to stay. Incorporating digital engagement tools elevates these experiences, resulting in greater efficiency and more personal connections.
Contactless doesn’t mean disconnected
There’s a misconception that contactless is cold and disconnected. After all, using tap-to-pay and digital wallet solutions or checking yourself out at a self-service kiosk isn’t the same as cash changing hands or direct interactions with retail employees.
But different doesn’t have to mean impersonal or disconnected. With digital engagement tools like Bitly Links, Codes, and Pages, businesses can build profound and meaningful connections with their audiences, even at contactless touchpoints.
For example, by using QR Codes for instant payments, you satisfy modern consumers’ demand for contactless solutions—82% of Millennials and 85% of Gen Zers prefer contactless payment methods. But these solutions also enable you to collect valuable customer insights, like what resonates with them, which you can use to personalize interactions, fostering stronger connections.
Using branded Bitly short links can also make contactless interactions feel more human. When you customize their back halves with details like customers’ names (great in event ticketing), you make interactions feel personal.
Engagement metrics are harder to track—but not impossible
It’s easy for contactless experiences to go untracked because there are minimal direct interactions with your staff. That means it’s often hard to determine whether your efforts have a positive return on investment (ROI) or where your strategy could use some tweaks.
But, while tracking engagement in contactless experiences is challenging, it’s not impossible. When you embed QR Codes and short links into your processes, you get greater visibility into every customer touchpoint.
With Bitly Links, for example, you can track engagement at live events in real time, allowing for brand awareness measurement. A high number of clicks could indicate successful efforts, making it easier to demonstrate positive ROI.
In an era when decision-makers expect marketing teams to achieve more with smaller budgets, the value of engagement measurement can’t be overstated. It promotes well-informed campaign optimization and resource allocation—and delivers proof of value.
When you bring UTM parameters into the mix, you unlock even more engagement metrics. According to Morganna Nickoff, our senior brand manager and in-house expert, these metrics could include leads generated, meetings booked, the number of meetings held at a conference, the number of people registered for the conference, and those who actually show up at your booth.
The best part? You can track all of them in one place: the Bitly Connections Platform.
The key is connecting offline to online
The key to making contactless moments more impactful is bridging the gap between offline and digital experiences. Using scannable elements in physical spaces creates a direct connection to ongoing digital engagements.
Similarly, using QR Codes or branded links to direct audiences to mobile-optimized landing pages (from physical touchpoints) creates a cohesive experience across environments, which can enhance customer satisfaction.
The Bitly Connections Platform makes it easy to monitor both online and offline experiences by uniting engagement data from both in one place. The platform offers multi-touch attribution insights from QR Code scans and link clicks (from both physical and digital mediums) in a single location, helping you understand how different touchpoints work together.
Examples of contactless touchpoints that benefit from digital engagement
To get the most out of your digital engagement strategy, you’ll need to determine which contactless touchpoints would benefit the most from bridging the gap between the two. Here are some ideas worth considering.
Pop-up shops and in-store signage
Pop-up shops and in-store signage are excellent candidates for digital engagement because they typically capture a lot of customer attention. Incorporating engagement tools like QR Codes lets you drive this attention online and foster relationships beyond your physical store.
Digital engagement tools encourage instant and deeper exploration, which can boost brand awareness and enhance customer engagement efforts, turning static signage into an active invitation.
You can use QR Codes on everything from product packaging and displays to counters and tags in high-traffic areas. They can direct customers to loyalty program sign-up forms to drive registrations, digital resources to educate shoppers in real time, and even survey pages to collect feedback.
But don’t limit yourself to just the in-store experience—QR Codes also work well on billboards, transit ads, posters, digital displays, and other out-of-home (OOH) advertising media.
Events and conferences
Trying to connect the dots between someone hearing of you at an event or conference and later expressing interest in your products or services is challenging.
But it becomes easier when you embed tools like QR Codes into wristbands, booths, presentations, event signage, and other touchpoints. Scan tracking allows you to guide visitors straight to your digital channels and capture valuable engagement data, such as the number of people who interact with your codes, to help gauge your event’s success.
Digital engagement tools can also streamline content delivery and lead generation from contactless touchpoints. For example, QR Codes on tickets could link to speakers’ session slides for easy downloads or a free ebook for lead collection. And they work just as well for webinars as they do in-person events.
Packaging and direct mail
Product packaging and direct mail mediums like postcards, brochures, and catalogs are pretty great, even on their own. In fact, brands like Pure Plates and Beardbrand have registered more than 11x ROI through direct mail.
That said, there’s always room for more. Short links and QR Codes can complement these tactile moments by delivering more personalized follow-up content, loyalty offers, or how-to guides, inviting customers to engage with you digitally. This can encourage more conversions and foster stronger relationships.
Retail checkouts and waiting areas
Retail checkouts and waiting areas are among the few places where you have customers’ undivided attention, making them excellent avenues for digital engagement. Take full advantage of them by using QR Codes to drive traffic to post-purchase pages for feedback collection or loyalty program sign-up web pages for seamless registrations.
In your waiting areas, use scannable signage to guide clients to check-in pages, service details web pages, or your social media platforms. This can provide time-filling value and create opportunities for engagement beyond your physical location.
You can also use QR Codes to advertise new products or services, instead of printing and leaving out physical ads or brochures. For example, a dentist’s office could display a poster advertising their new teeth-whitening service, along with a Bitly Code patients can scan to learn more about the cost and how it works.
Hospitality, travel, and entertainment
When you offer great experiences in any kind of hospitality business, the chances of maintaining customer loyalty go through the roof. If that’s your industry, you’ll want to focus on combining utility and engagement in your touchpoints. You might:
- Send room confirmation emails with QR Codes that pull up your location on Google Maps (via a URL).
- Add codes to your takeout menus that link to your online ordering page.
- Incorporate short links that lead to a web page where customers can pick their preferred meals in flight confirmation messages.
The goal is to create a seamless experience that’s branded end to end. So think about areas where you can turn a passive or generic moment into an engaging connection that reinforces your brand.
How to turn contactless moments into digital engagement opportunities with Bitly
Bitly is the engine that transforms static moments into dynamic, measurable interactions. Our platform can help you improve contactless experiences by opening up and streamlining digital engagement opportunities.
Many brands already use Bitly to bring their short link and QR Code ideas for retail, professional services, and hospitality to life. For example, Rad Power Bikes uses Bitly Codes in retail experiences, transforming basic hang tags into portals that lead to extensive product information online. You can use our platform to do this and more—and here’s how:
Use branded short links and QR Codes to build trust
Bitly offers extensive short link and QR Code branding capabilities. With our user-friendly QR Code generator, it’s easy to customize your codes with your brand colors, integrate your logo in the center, and even use unique patterns and frames to enhance consistency and brand awareness.
Our platform also lets you replace the generic “bit.ly” domain with your brand’s domain and customize the back halves of your links with your desired text to boost trust and recognition.
Personalization can make your assets look more credible and trustworthy, increasing your click or scan rates, so be sure to take advantage of these features.
Make sure the experience matches the expectation
One of the most common and damaging mistakes brands make is failing to meet customer expectations when it comes to their digital tools. When you use reliable, custom QR Codes and links across your contactless touchpoints, it’s essential to make sure the experience on the other end of a click or scan is just as engaging and seamless.
Morganna agrees, stating, “It’s all about, like, user experience. So, oftentimes, say marketers will be creating these touch points to send communications. They may not think about: ‘After I send my customer or my audience to a place, what is that experience is going to be?’”
Fortunately, Bitly can help you prevent this disconnect. Bitly Pages provides mobile-optimized no-code landing page templates that can serve as your digital destinations, creating consistent experiences throughout the customer journey.
The icing on the cake? Bitly’s landing pages are also fully customizable. You can incorporate your brand colors and logo, embed videos, and upload carousel images to align the pages with your overall branding and enhance visitor engagement.
Track everything from clicks to conversions in one place
Bitly brings the engagement data for all your products (QR Codes, short links, and landing pages) into one central location, allowing you to monitor customer interactions conveniently.
Through Bitly Analytics, you get to see:
- Total clicks/scans
- Clicks/scans over time
- Clicks/scans by location (city/country)
- Clicks/scans by device (iOS vs. Android, mobile vs. desktop)
- Referral sources
This data can help you optimize your efforts—and your results. For example, if you find that your target audience engages more with QR Codes on print materials than in emails, you can prioritize the print placement in future campaigns.
As Morganna put it, “The three core benefits of analytics are making better decisions in real time, understanding your audience, and being able to maximize or optimize whatever you’re doing—your investment and your resources. So what makes the analytics platform beneficial is that you can put together customizable charts and real time data and kind of see where people are clicking and scanning.”
Don’t let contactless moments go to waste
Just because an experience is contactless doesn’t mean it should be passive or forgettable. Take advantage of digital engagement tools like QR Codes and short links to make these moments more interactive and trackable. In turn, you’ll deliver better customer experiences and be able to make continual improvements.
With Bitly, you have the tools you need to create unforgettable contactless moments and understand their impact. Our codes, short links, and landing pages promote seamless connections with customers, regardless of whether they find you online or off, while our analytics platform provides valuable engagement insights for well-informed decisions.
Create a Bitly account today to turn contactless touchpoints into interactive and measurable moments!
