DTM link tracking setup

[saraths97289823]

Hi all,

I am new to DTM. I have setup an event based rule and a page load rule for my test site. For now everything is working fine when a normal link is clicked. I have an external link in my site. I wanted to track the link and put it into an evar. So i have enabled the link tracking in the "Overview" of DTM. Now when i click on an external link i am able to see 3 pixels getting triggered.

1. Pixel with the page load configured variables with the link type set to external link.

2. Click pixel

3. Page load pixel.

Question 1 : Am i supposed to get 3 pixels????

Question 2 : If yes, then there will be a conflict in the reports as the variables configured in the page load rule are sent to the reports twice. How to resolve this issue?????

Question 3 : How to extract the link type and put it into an evar or a prop???

Note: I have not configured any evar or prop under global variable section in the overview.

[jantzen_b · Accepted solution]

Hi there!

If you're new to DTM, you should really start looking into Launch. DTM is considered a legacy product at this point with no new features planed for release within DTM. Launch Is Adobe's new tag management solution. You can learn more about Launch on our Launch, by Adobe​ community.

With that said, yes, based on your current configuration, your site would fire 3 beacons. The first beacon would be the page load rule. This beacon fires at the top of every page unless disabled. The second beacon comes from your even based rule. it's likely that you don't have strict enough conditions on the even based rule to prevent it from firing on external links. The third beacon would be your exit link beacon.

In Launch, everything is much more specific. You have to tell Launch to send a beacon or to set variables. There are no automatic beacons in Launch.

If you prefer to stay with DTM, one solution would be to add additional conditions to your click event base rule to only fire on certain links. Typically, many of our customers will have a rule for each specific behavior that they'd like to track differently. For example, they might have a rule for when someone clicks on a product image. They can then use that rule to set the variables they'd like for that scenario. it's usually not advisable to have a single rule for all clicks on a website.