How to prevent Link Click rule from firing when clicking on "white/empty space" of a page?

Question

Hi community,
I am implementing link click event rules on a site using Adobe Launch. Right now, the event that triggers the rule is a "Core - Click" that specifies that it fires "when a user clicks on any element". 
This works great for what it is meant to do, firing when users click on links, buttons, etc and then pulling in the correct Data Elements/etc. However, this also triggers if someone clicks in the empty or "white space" of a page and essentially fires junk data into Adobe.
While I could filter out the junk data in Adobe when reporting or by using complex Processing Rules, neither of those scenarios are ideal, as they would require a lot of day-to-day consideration and maintenance. Also, I know that I could set the rule to fire only "When the user clicks on specific elements", but even that seems like it would be fairly complex considering the diversity of link text, divs, etc. that I would have to account for within that logic.
Is there a simple way to prevent click events from firing when someone clicks on empty/white space on a site (even if it is a simplified approach to the "specific elements" logic)? If not, I can look into the more detailed "specific elements" approach, I am just hoping there is an easy/blanket solve for this that someone else has found.
Thank you, y'all rock!!

leocwlau · Accepted Answer

Never go click event on any element alone. Any element is really meaning any click, as even if empty and white space, they are within the <html> at the end and will trigger the tracking.

You need to make the rule a bit more specific, no matter from the click event to use CSS selector or custom code condition, to filter down the actual click event you want to track. Custom code condition was my usual trick with click event on any element where the requirement may be too complicated for the CSS selector.

Jennifer_Dungan · Answer

The only thing I can think of is don't use "any element"?

If you are sending tracking calls on every click action ever... this means you are likely using up your server calls at a furious rate... I would suggest taking the time to evaluate what needs to be tracked, and create specific targeting for those elements only.

Is this work... yes.

Is it worth the effort... yes

(because it will save you time and effort on your reporting, and it will save your company lots of money - or rather will ensure you don't have to pay overage charges at the end of the year because you used up you server calls with clicks you didn't need to begin with)

Even if you have specific divs that you want tracking for... you should limit the clicks to the ones you need...

Ostensibly, if you are using Activity Map, you shouldn't need as many click actions to trigger tracking... I only track clicks on very important functionality that requires additional parameters... (also, if there are expand/collapse elements on the page that we need to track interactions for, I create rules only for those elements). I let everything else, links in the page, and whatever else rely solely on Activity Map to track what people are interacting with...

I did however, use some coding to break our site into easily identified regions (header, main menu, main content, right rail, footer, etc) so that I can also pull out clicks by regions (and not have to worry too much about the specific links - though I can drill those down through the standard Activity Map data).

https://experienceleague.adobe.com/docs/analytics/analyze/activity-map/link-tracking/activitymap-link-tracking-methodology.html?lang=en

I am using a data attribute on main content block and I set up my Activity Map to use that attribute for the regions.... (instead of lpos like this site suggests, I use data-lpos so that it complies better with web coding standards)

I guess the final thing is... what do you really need to track with click tracking? Keeping in mind the balance between work effort, what you will gain from specific tracking and how much all those server calls will cost you in the end.... (Activity Map, since it sends the data on the next page view, or on the Exit Link, means it won't create additional server calls, and will keep your server call usage under better control)

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