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What is Mixpanel?

Mixpanel will help you better understand your customers and answer questions about your product. It enables you to track how users engage with your product and analyze this data with interactive reports that let you query and visualize the results with just a few clicks. Mixpanel is built on three key concepts: Events, Users, and Properties.

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Concepts

Before you get started, you should know three Mixpanel concepts:
  • Events are actions that happen in your product
  • Users are the people who use your product
  • Properties are the attributes of your users and events

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Events

An event is a data point that represents an interaction between a user and your product. Events can be a wide range of interactions. Imagine you run a cafe where customers can purchase a coffee via an app. Each purchase is an event that can be tracked in Mixpanel. Event illustration
Events represent any interaction in your product - from button clicks to purchases to page views. Choose events that matter to your business goals.

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Users

On the other side of an event is a user — the specific individual who completed an interaction with your product. Each user has a unique identifier that you can use to track their activity. This identifier can be an email address, a username, or a unique ID. Mixpanel uses a unique ID to identify users. Events and Users relationship
Mixpanel automatically generates a unique ID for each user, but you can also set your own user IDs to match your internal systems.

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Properties

You can track additional information about users and events. These details are called properties. An Event Property describes an event. For a coffee purchase, the event would be Purchased Item and the event properties could be type (in this case a Coffee) and price (in this case $2.50). Event with properties A User Property describes a User. This could be their name, email, age, etc. User profile with properties Properties allow you to create groups of users (aka cohorts) and also enable you to filter for certain events or users. These powerful features make it easy to identify trends and new customer insights.

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Understanding the Data Model

Event Properties

Describe what happened during an eventExamples: product_name, price, category, duration

User Properties

Describe who the user isExamples: name, email, signup_date, plan_type
The more detailed your properties, the more powerful your analysis. However, start simple and add more properties as you learn what matters most.

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Example: Coffee Shop App

Let’s see how these concepts work together: 
{
  "event": "Purchased Item",
  "properties": {
    "item_type": "Coffee",
    "price": 2.50,
    "size": "Medium",
    "location": "Downtown Store"
  },
  "distinct_id": "user_12345",
  "user_properties": {
    "name": "Jane Smith",
    "email": "[email protected]",
    "loyalty_status": "Gold Member",
    "signup_date": "2024-01-15"
  }
}
In this example:
  • Event: “Purchased Item” - the action that occurred
  • Event Properties: type, price, size, location - details about the purchase
  • User: user_12345 - the unique identifier for Jane
  • User Properties: name, email, loyalty_status - details about Jane

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Next Steps

Now that you understand the basics, we recommend planning the first events you would like to track. This will help you understand what you need to get started. Choosing these events should take no more than 5 minutes.

Plan Your Tracked Events

Learn what events to track and best practices for event naming and properties
Already Know What You Want to Track?If you already know the events you want to track, you can skip planning and start by installing Mixpanel.Install Mixpanel →

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