Similar to the above responses, I agree that both link text or link url are important for different reasons... the most important thing is what do you and your business need to understand what links are being clicked.
For instance, if your site is available in many languages (and let's assume there is one version of the URL, and language setting is controlled via cookies or storage variables, or tied into a user's account, etc).... The link would be better to track so that you don't have the link separated by multiple variants (one for each language, which would be harder to consolidate). However, if you are dealing with a single language site, the link text, which is visible and easier for business to consume, would potentially be better to track for readability...
Another thing to consider is, if you are using different types of wordings to drive engagement... i.e. does "buy now" get better clickability than just "buy", or what about "limited time offer"... if understanding what wording drives engagement is important to you, then the link text would be much more important in this scenario.
As for download links, there is actually a third option to what @RobertBlakeley said...
Option 1 - Automatic Download Tracking
Option 2 - Creating a custom code to track downloads (adding additional variables on the tracking call)
Let me pause here and first say, if you are doing custom tracking, but still have automatic tracking on, then you could be using up your server call allotments unnecessarily...
Option 3 - I actually added some custom code into my automatic tracking call... so I get the best of both worlds. I don't have to create specific triggers for the download links, or my exit links for that matter, but both of those have additional parameters in the calls that are triggering automatically.
To do this I added the following code into my Analytics extension custom code block:
s.usePlugins = true;
function s_doPlugins(s) {
if (s.linkType === 'e') {
s.events = "";
s.linkTrackEvents = "";
s.linkTrackVars = "prop1,prop2,eVar1,eVar2";
}
else if (s.linkType === 'd') {
s.events = "event1";
s.linkTrackEvents = "event1";
s.linkTrackVars = "prop1,prop2,eVar1,eVar2";
}
}
Basically, the doPlugins is run right before the final tracking call is compiled and sent... so I just look for it to be an exit link (e) or download link (d) then add additional parameters to the list of items being tracked.. This example is just showing standard page level params, but you could easily set so additional parameters here in this code and attach them as well...
Going back to Option 2....for any Custom Link tracking that I do, to make sure that I don't have both my tracking call and one of the automatic tracking calls (which are obviously turned on globally), I add to my calls a manual code to turn off the automatic tracking, then after the tracking of the link is complete, I turn it back on for the next click.
If the link is internal, it doesn't hurt anything, if the link is an exit link, it ensures that my custom tracking is the only one that gets fired.
Before my custom code click tracking:
s.trackExternalLinks = false;
After the click tracking has finished:
s.trackExternalLinks = true;
Just one of the little things I do to ensure that I am not using extra server calls when I don't have to.
