Sure thing...
So first, as much as I like to reduce my server call footprint to page views (and relying on Activity Map as much as possible), when it comes to core flows (like subscription / purchasing / etc) like in your case, I think you will still need to have both an action and the following page view to capture what you need.
Just so we are on the same page, I am thinking of "Element 1" in terms of "payment dropdown", or "form input for name".. i.e. something that would have a single end value associated to it... if you have a multi-select, you would need to pass all the selected values. I am not thinking of "X" in terms of something the user interacts with more of what was the value for that element.... Maybe if I could see the pages you are trying to track it would help me to frame my example data in something more than generic naming.....
Depending on the complexity of your items / pages... having a dimension for each element might be enough (i.e. you know that someone interacted with "Element 1" if you have a value in your dimension when they go to the next step). However, if someone does interact with Element 1, then removes it, it won't be tracked... I don't know if that particular flow is common for you, or something you really need to track...
If it is, I suppose you could create some custom tracking... set up an object on the window level (empty to start), every time someone interacts with an element you can add that element to a "list" formatted value...
i.e. "element1", then "element1,element2", then "element1,element2,element7", etc....
You could even create logic around de-duplicating the values... so if a user interacts with "element1" 3 times, its only part of the list once...
Now, if you pass this entire value into a hit based eVar, so long as it's 255 characters or under, nothing will be truncated. You can also pass it to a list variable, but note that duplicates will be removed by Adobe....
So in this way, you can basically create a custom solution to track all the interacted with elements (regardless of the value).
If you like the concept of the list, you could even use a "pair values" as a list:
"element 1:X,element 2:Y,element 7:,element 8:Z"
// OR
"element 1:X,element 2:Y,element 7:na,element 8:Z"
or even add another value to each item for the step:
"step 1:element 1:X,step 1:element 2:Y,step 1:element 7:,step 1:element 8:Z"
// OR
"step 1:element 1:X,step 1:element 2:Y,step 1:element 7:na,step 1:element 8:Z"
You can use this extra information as part of classification rules...
Note that in these example, I left "element 7" empty (or passed "na"), you will have to see what works best for you, but the "na" is a bit easier for Classification Regex rules.... but more complicated from a "manage the window object" perspective... if you aren't a strong coder, you may want to get some developer support for this, as this is a custom solution... and before even going down that road, I suggest you run some tests in Dev/QA just passing some hard-code values and making sure you can interpret the values.
This will certainly achieve less server calls, but it does require a lot of custom code to set up...
As for the product notation, let's deal with a simple example... let's use the example of:
- SKU: 12345
- Product Name: Adobe Analytics T-Shirt
- Colour: Black
- Price: 9.99
- Type: Clothing
On the product page, you could have multiple colour / prices per colour, etc... so I would track on the Page View, only the content that makes sense:
s.products = ";12345;;;event1=1;eVar1=adobe analytics t-shirt|eVar2=clothing";
s.events = "event1";
category (not used); product id (sku); quantity (not relevant here); price (not relevant here); event1 (numeric event for "product page view"); eVar1 (name) and eVar2 (type)
Note 1: You don't have to have event1 in the products notation here for simple implementations... but IF you also have something like "other people also bought" on the Product Profile page, you may want to track the "current product" with event1 (product profile view) and the "recommended products" with event2 (recommended). Having it explicitly in the product notation ensures the correct product gets the count.
Note 2: price and quantity only map during a purchase, even if you want to track the price (assuming all the same) and quantity, these will be stripped since those are used to calculate revenue (actual sales).. if you need them here, set up custom merchandising eVars to track at other steps, like here)
Now, when the user adds the black t-shirt to their cart:
s.products = ";12345;;;;eVar1=adobe analytics t-shirt|eVar2=clothing|eVar3=black";
s.events = "scAdd";
Note, you can just add the scAdd to s.events, you don't need to tie into the s.products notation. Only the product being added to cart should be on this server call.
In your Cart view, like Product Page, you can list all the products in your cart, and use the scView event (if you have recommended content on that page, then you may need to have events in the product notation).
Similar, your Start Checkout would track the items with scCheckout.
When the purchase is complete, you can now have quantity and price in the notation:
s.products = ";12345;1;9.99;;eVar1=adobe analytics t-shirt|eVar2=clothing|eVar3=black";
s.eVar10 = "credit card";
s.events = "purchase";
Note: I am keeping the step info, such as payment with CC separate from the products, as it is global to the entire purchase, not specific to the t-shirt.
Now, in your reporting, you can pull in Products (or even your custom eVar holding the Name), and your custom event1 (and event2 if you have that tracking), all your Cart events, and your Orders (purchase) event. You can even add Revenue, which will be quantity multiplied by price...
Under each product, you can breakdown by your merchandising eVars to see the other information you collected (like colour, you will see "black", "grey", "red', etc.
You can also break down by the generic values on the purchase event like eVar10 (Payment Type) - this will only apply to the Purchase and Revenue columns.
