The same physical product crosses borders; its printed code cannot change en route. Per-country routing solves the mismatch: one Digital Link on the pack, with the resolver sending each scan where that market needs it to go, a German scan to the German distributor, a Mexican scan to the Spanish-language page, a French scan to the market-specific campaign.
What varies by market in practice
Destination. Distributors, localized stores and market sites each want their own traffic. An overlay per country sends scans to the right property without per-market packaging.
Language and copy. Hosted pages localize: headline, buttons and content can differ per market, and the resolver also negotiates the reader's language within a market, so a French speaker in Belgium reads French.
Law. Compliance content is jurisdictional by nature: EU scans see passport data, California scans see the Prop 65 warning, and nobody else is burdened with either. This is the regulatory chameleon behaviour, and it falls out of the same mechanism as routing.
How it is configured
On Onpack, markets are settings on the product: pick a country from the console's list, give the overlay a destination or page overrides, save. Everything unspecified inherits from the base product, so a two-country brand configures two exceptions, not a matrix. Links can also be country-scoped individually, so a market-specific link never leaks outside its market, per the linkset rules in the API reference.
What this replaces
The legacy answers were per-market artwork (expensive, error-prone, slow to change) or a single global landing page that serves everyone equally badly. Scan-time routing replaces both: one artwork, market-correct behaviour, changeable in minutes, which compounds with the rest of the single-code story, recalls, analytics and checkout, in the Sunrise transition.
The analytics side-effect
Because routing is by country, so is measurement: the scan analytics show where in the world your packs are actually being scanned, which is distribution intelligence brands otherwise buy from panels. Grey-market detection is a bonus: scans of a market-exclusive product appearing in the wrong country are visible the day they start.
Common questions
How does the code know which country a scan is from?
The resolver reads the scan's network geolocation at country level. No app, no GPS permission, no tracking of the person: just which country the request arrived from.
Can each market have different page content, not just a different URL?
Yes. Market overlays can change the destination, the headline, buttons and compliance content, with anything not overridden inheriting from the base product.
What happens in countries I have not configured?
They get the default behaviour: your base destination or page. Overlays are exceptions, not obligations.
Is per-country routing legal under GDPR?
Country-level routing uses no personal data: no identifier, no precise location, no cookie. Onpack's privacy page documents exactly what a scan records.