Advanced Insights Functionality

Mixpanel's Insights report allows you to analyze your user data as a current snapshot or as a trend over time. This article covers advanced functionality available in the Insights report that lets you drill in more deeply on your data, or ask a more precise question.

For more of an overview of Insights, click here.

Choose to explore either Events & Cohorts or Profiles. Events & Cohorts allows you to examine user behaviors, while Profiles allows you access profile data and visualize your users with filters and breakdowns based on their profile properties. When exploring Profiles, you are always analyzing all user profiles. 

Time Period Comparisons

Compare the current period of time to previous periods of time in order to track trends and growth in your product’s use. Compare traffic from a specific campaign period or event from one year to the next, or compare the success of that campaignto your normal traffic.

Note that if a data point for a previous year falls on a weekend, the data point is automatically moved to the next Monday to give a more clear picture of the data change from one year to the next.

Click on the Compare to past button at the top of your Insights graph and select the time period you wish to compare to. You can also select a custom date range.

Bucketing

Insights will automatically group your high-cardinality segments into ranges. Ranges can be edited by using the "Customize Range" option in the overflow menu:

If you want custom buckets that are non-uniform, you can create custom properties to manipulate these buckets.

Annotations

In order to clarify the results in your Insights report add detailed annotations directly to the line chart. Annotations are tied to a specific date on the chart, rather than a specific data point on the chart.

Only project admins can create, save, and delete annotations.

To add an annotation, hover your mouse over the point on the chart you want to annotate, and click the blue + button that appears.Enter a description for the annotation, such as a holiday that occurred on that day or the end date of your fiscal year, then click Save. If you accidentally selected the incorrect date on the chart, you can edit the date and time of the annotation in this window.

View an existing annotation by clicking on the number found at the bottom of a report. You will be able to see who submitted the annotation.

Hover the cursor over the annotation to edit or delete it. Click on the pencil icon to edit an annotation, or the trash icon to delete an annotation. Add additional annotations to the same date by clicking Add annotation.

Insights Data Functions, Operators and Calculations

Data Functions in Mixpanel reports allow you to perform more complex calculations on your queries - this includes computing aggregate values of your event and property data, including totals, uniques, and averages.

The following data functions are only available in Insights, and are separated into groups based on what is being calculated: Total, Unique, Count users, aggregate property values, aggregate property values per user, and count sessions.

The following functions have additional aggregation options which you will be prompted to select:

Function	Aggregation options
Events	Total Per User
Aggregate Properties	Sum Average Median Distinct Count Percentiles (P25,P75,P90,P99) Minimum Maximum
Count Users	Daily Active Users (DAU) Weekly Active Users (WAU) Monthly Active Users (MAU)
Event property value per user	Sum Average Distinct value count Minimum Maximum

These functions provide additional aggregation options following the initial calculation because they are “per user” calculations. “Per user” calculations first calculate the value per user, which is an unhelpful query in its raw form, but becomes useful when you perform an aggregation on that calculation.

Selecting any of these functions gives you the option to choose different ways to aggregate this data. The default aggregation is Average, which you can click on to select a different option such as distribution, median, 25/75/90th percentiles, minimum and maximum.

If the data function you select calculates based on property (“Event Property Values” or “Event Property Values Per User”), you will be prompted to select an event property.

You can find more information about each data function and how they are calculated below:

Events

Function Name	Events & Cohorts Calculation	Profiles Calculation
Total	Total count of [event] performed. Example: How many times did my users watch a video?	N/A
Total per user	The number of events performed per user. Example: How many videos were watched per user? Aggregation options: Average, distribution, median, percentiles, minimum, maximum	N/A

 

Users

Function Name	Events & Cohorts Calculation	Profiles Calculation
Total	N/A	Total count of user profiles. Example: What's my total number of users?
Unique	The number of users who performed [event]. Example: What's the count of users who watched a video?	N/A
Daily Active Users (DAU)	The number of users who performed [event] within the last 24 hours. Example: What's the count of users who watched a video in the last day?	N/A
Weekly Active Users (WAU)	The number of users who performed [event] within the last 7 days. Example: What's the count of users who watched a video in the week?	N/A
Monthly Active Users (MAU)	The number of users who performed [event] within the last 30 days. Example: What's the count of users who watched a video in the last month?	N/A

 

Aggregate Property values

Function Name	Events & Cohorts Calculation	Profiles Calculation
Sum	The total of a numeric property value across all instances of [event]. Example: What's the total number of minutes of videos watched?	The total of a numeric property value across all user profiles. Example: What's the total revenue across all users?
Average	Average of a numeric property value across all instances of [event]. Example: What's the average number of minutes per video watched?	Average of a numeric property value across all user profiles. Example: What's the average revenue across all users?
Distinct count	Calculates the unique count of property values across all instances of [event]. Example: How many unique songs were played in the last 30 days?	Calculates the unique count of property values across all profiles. Example: How many unique countries were our video watchers from?
Median	Median of a numeric property value across all instances of [event]. Example: What's the median number of minutes per video watched?	Median of a numeric property value across all user profiles. Example: What's the median revenue across all users?
Percentiles (25/75/90/99)	The 25/75/90/99th percentile of a numeric property value across all instances of [event]. Example: What's the 25th percentile number of minutes of videos watched?	The 25/75/90/99th percentile of a numeric property value across all user profiles. Example: What's the 25th percentile revenue across all users?
Minimum	Minimum of a numeric property value across all instances of [event]. Example: What's the minimum number of minutes per video watched?	Minimum of a numeric property value across all user profiles. Example: What's the minimum revenue across all users?
Maximum	Maximum of a numeric property value across all instances of [event]. Example: What's the maximum number of minutes per video watched?	Maximum of a numeric property value across all user profiles. Example: What's the maximum revenue across all users?

 

Aggregate property values per user

Function Name	Events & Cohorts Calculation	Profiles Calculation
Sum	The total of a numeric property value across all instances of [event] per user. Example: What's the total number of hours of videos watched per user? Aggregation options: Average, distribution, median, percentiles, minimum, maximum	N/A
Average	Average of a numeric property value across all instances of [event] per user. Example: What's the average number of hours of videos watched per user? Aggregation options: Average, distribution, median, percentiles, minimum, maximum	N/A
Distinct count	The number of distinct property values per user. Example: How many different videos did each user watch? Aggregation options: Average, distribution, median, percentiles, minimum, maximum	N/A
Minimum	Minimum of a numeric property value across all instances of [event] per user. Example: What's the minimum number of hours of videos watched per user? Aggregation options: Average, distribution, median, percentiles, minimum, maximum	N/A
Maximum	Maximum of a numeric property value across all instances of [event] per user. Example: What's the maximum number of hours of videos watched per user? Aggregation options: Average, distribution, median, percentiles, minimum, maximum	N/A

 

Count Sessions

Function Name	Events & Cohorts Calculation	Profiles Calculation
Sessions with event	The number of sessions that contain [event]. Example: What's the total number of sessions in which users watched a video?	N/A

 

Additional Aggregation Option Examples

Data Function	Average	Distribution	Median	Percentiles (25/75/90)	Minimum/ Maximum
Total per user	What's the average number of songs played per user?	What is the distribution of my users by the number of songs played?	What's the median number of songs played per user?	How many songs did the 90th percentile user listen to?	How many songs did my least/most active user listen to?
Sum of property value count per user	What's the average cumulative watch time per user?	What's the distribution of my users by the cumulative minutes of content watched?	What's the median of the cumulative watch time per user?	How many cumulative minutes has the 90th percentile user watched?	How much has the lowest/highest spender spent?
Average of property value count per user	What's the average of the average cart value for each rider?	What's the distribution of my users by the average cart value per user?	What's the median of the average cart value per user?	What's the average cart value for the 90th percentile user?	What's the minimum/maximum average cart value?
Distinct property value count per user	What's the average number of unique song titles heard by my users?	What's the distribution of my users by the number of unique song titles listened to?	How many unique songs does the median user listen to?	How many unique songs does the 90th percentile user listen to?	What's the minimum/maximum number of unique songs my users listen to?
Minimum property value count per user	What's the average of the minimum ratings provided per user?	What's the distribution of my users by the minimum rating provided?	What's the median of the minimum ratings provided by users?	What's the minimum rating provided by the 90th percentile user?	What's the minimum rating across all ratings??
Maximum property value count per user	What's the average of the maximum gaming session length per user?	What's the distribution of my users by the maximum gaming session length?	What's the median of the maximum gaming session length per user?	What's the maximum gaming session length provided by the 90th percentile user?	How long has the longest gaming session lasted across our users?

 Here's a quick overview on "Distinct count" of property values, and how that differs from "Distinct count" of property values per-user:

Here are some use-cases that are now possible with "Distinct count" of property values:

• How many unique items were added to cart yesterday?
• How many unique songs / videos were played in the last 30 days?
• How many unique files were worked on in the last week?

Daily, Weekly, and Monthly Active Users

Daily Active Users (DAU)

Select DAU to calculate the number of unique users in the previous day (24-hour) period that have performed the selected event.

Weekly Active Users (WAU)

Select WAU to calculate the number of unique users in the previous week (7-day) period that have performed the selected event.

Monthly Active Users (MAU)

Select MAU to calculate the number of unique users in the previous month (30-day) period that have performed the selected event.

 

Explore User Profiles

Select the Data Function you want to use to calculate results by clicking on Total and selecting an option from the drop-down. You can calculate based on users or profile property value.

 

Formulas

Use Formulas to make calculations using simple arithmetic operators.

Mixpanel supports the following operators:

• + : Add
• - : Subtract
• * : Multiply
• / : Divide
• () : Use parentheses to influence the order of operations

Click the Formula button. Each event in the query shows a letter next to it, which indicates its variable name. Use these letters in combination with the operators to calculate a more advanced query. For example, you can use the DAU, WAU, and MAU functions in Formulas to calculate the stickiness of your product:

Enter a name for the formula (optional), and click Apply Formula to see the formula output.

For example, you can calculate the ratio of DAU to MAU using a formula. Build an Insights report with event A as "App Session" and select MAU. Select "App Session" with DAU for event B. Apply the formula B/A to show the ratio of DAU to MAU in the report. 

You can also use numbers as constants in a formula. Multiply a ratio by 100 to display as a percentage, for example. Divide a property value tracked in seconds by 3,600 to display the value in hours.

Customize ranges

When breaking down/segmenting by a numeric property, Mixpanel decides what intervals the values get grouped into, while you always had the option to customize these ranges/buckets with Custom Properties, it required a bit of effort to setup, so we've added support to define intervals without any formulas:

View Users

You can now click a segment (bar or line) in an Insights report to see the list of users that underlie that data point. This helps see a representative sample of users from any analysis, so you can drill into anomalies or simply get to know your users. You can also save this user list as a cohort to either export or use for message targeting.

Please note: "View users" are currently unsupported on visualizations other than bar and line. 

View Events from Insights

You can now click on a chart segment (bar, line) in Insights and view the raw events that made up that metric (redirects you to Events page):

 

View Sample Events

If you've ever wanted to see a few samples of an event to help you decide whether that's the right event you want for analysis or which property you should use for filters/breakdowns, this is for you.

You can hover over any event and in the context panel, you now have the ability to "View Sample Events", which redirects you to the Events page with 100 most recent samples of that hovered event: