Several weeks ago I wrote a post about how to track clicks at Google Tag Manager.
Firstly, the division into “Clicks” and “Link clicks” may seem strange. What is the difference?

With the help of “Clicks” listener we can track clicks at ALL DOM-elements, but with the help of “Link clicks” – only clicks at links.

But why we can’t track link clicks with the help of “Clicks” listener?
After link click we have a redirection on an another page or a domain.That is why to send a hit (an event, a virtual pageview, etc.) to Google Analytics we should have enough time after a click on a link and before the redirection. This is a very short period of time (milliseconds) and sometimes GA does not have enough time to send a hit and we lose data.

“Link clicks” listener at Google Tag Manager allows “to wait”, while a hit will be successfully sent to Google Analytics, and only after that it makes a redirection on an another page. All process still takes milliseconds (and a user does not notice the difference), but data absolutely will be sent to Google Analytics.

Let’s say we want to track click on links from header menu:

And we will send an event to Universal Analytics with several parameters:
Category: Links
Action: click
Label: “About me” or “Home” (depending on clicked link)
Value: 1

1. Check the variables settings

Let’s go to “Variables” menu at Google Tag Manager interface and make sure that variables at “Clicks” section are active:

I activated all of these variables, however, at this post I’ll use only “Click Text” variable.

2. Create triggers

Click “New” at “Triggers” menu for creation a trigger, which will track a click on links at header menu.

2.1. “Choose event” – choose “Click”

2.2. “Configure trigger”
a) Name your tag at “Trigger name” field(for example, “T – Links – Header”).
b) Choose “Link click” at “Trigger type” field and after that activate checkboxes “Wait for tags” and “Check validation”.

2.3. “Enable when” – there I used I used only one filter:
[ Page URL ] [ matches RegEx ] [ .*]
That means, that my link clicks will be listened at all of the website pages.

2.4. “Fire when”
a) Choose “Some clicks”
b)As I want to track clicks on links with the text “Home” or “About me”, I will have only one filter:
[ Click text ] [ matches RegEx(ignore case) ] [ (home)|(about me) ]

My tag configuration looks like following:

Let’s click on “Save Trigger” and go to the next step.

3. Create a tag

Go to “Tags” menu and click on “New”.

3.1. “Choose your tag” – choose “Google Analytics”.

3.2. “Choose a tag type” – choose “Universal Analytics” and click “Continue”.

3.3. “What triggers this tag to fire?”
a) Choose “Click”
b) Choose a trigger at the popup window , which we have created at p.2, and click “Save”.

3.4. Configure your tag
Tag name: for example, “UA – Links – Header”.
Tracking ID: this means you should enter a Universal Analytics Tracking ID(UA-XXXXXXXX-X), which you can find at Google Analytics interface: “Admin -> Property -> Property settings”. I saved this string at a separate GTM variable “{{UA ID}}”.
Enable Display Advertising Features: – activate, if it is necessary.

The following settings are made for a certain event, which will be sent to Universal analytics after linking a click:
Track Type: Event
Category: Links
Action: click
Label: {{Click Text}} – I chose a variable “Click Text”, it’s value will be “Home” or “About me” depending on the text of the clicked link.
Value: 1

Non-iteraction hit: I did not make any changes at this option

My tag configuration looks like this:

Click on “Create Tag”.

4. Publish the container and check the results

Open Overview tab, click on “Publish” and click on “Publish now” at a popup window.

Go to “Real-Time -> Events” at Universal Analytics interface. If a tag was set up correctly, you will see an event at your reports after a click on “Home” link:

Summary

This approach allows to track clicks on website links(both internal and external) and to be sure, that the data about clicks will be 100% sent to Google Analytics.