Mixpanel vs Humanlytics
If it can be measured, it can be improved.
This is a two-step process that forms the foundation on which every experiment and analytics project is built - measurement and improvement.
Where measurement is about collecting data and analyzing it so you know what it means to derive useful insights from it.
Then use those insights to make an improvement.
Many tools have been developed for marketers to measure different aspects of their campaign ranging from web to product analytics tools.
Mixpanel is one of the most widely used product analytics tools used to track user interactions within a website or an app.
Through user interactions, marketers can get a better understanding of their customers’ behavior, information that can be used to improve marketing.
For example: If you find that the users with the highest revenue came through Facebook Ads, you may want to increase your Facebook ad budget to generate more revenue.
But if Facebook users are also associated with high churn rates, you may not want to increase your budget there.
This is how you can use user interaction data in Mixpanel to make better decisions.
Humanlytics, unlike Mixpanel, is used at the analysis stage.
Where the data collected by tools like Google Analytics, Facebook Ads, or Mixpanel is analyzed to generate actionable insights.
Humanlytics then helps you take action based on the insights generated as a way to improve any aspect of your marketing campaign.
These platforms are used at different stages of the data analytics process where Mixpanel is used at the measurement stage to track and report user interactions.
While Humanlytics is used at the analysis stage, to analyze all marketing data and generate insights to improve or hit a marketing goal.
To better understand the difference between these platforms, let’s look at the value delivered at these three stages:
Data collection
Data analysis
Action taking
1. Data Collection
Mixpanel
Mixpanel allows you to track and collect data about specific user actions – called “events”, including data about where these events occurred and when.
The goal for every business is to be able to communicate value in a way that stimulates action and ends in a revenue-generating event.
This is where Mixpanel is used – to ensure different user cohorts realize the value in your product or website.
Mixpanel is used to track events, create sales funnels and see trends to help you answer questions like;
How many people are clicking the signup page after visiting the features page?
Where are people dropping off during a particular sales funnel?
What referring sites are giving us the biggest ROI?
Where do customers with the longest lifetime value come from?
For Mixpanel users, the platform’s most meaningful feature is its ability to tie actual customer data through user_id tracking to the respective online behavior.
This provides greater insight into the experiences that affect engagement, conversion, and retention.
For the above questions, taking a deeper look at user events, we can gather insights like:
The sign-up language isn’t clear enough.
People are dropping off at the pricing page.
Users from Pinterest have the highest conversion rate
UK customers have a higher LTV than those from the US.
Understanding user engagement is invaluable because it gives you the foresight needed to tweak your users’ experience and maximize usability.
Humanlytics
Humanlytics, on the other hand, doesn’t take part in any data collection.
Businesses are already generating too much data that they fail to utilize. Humanlytics’ goal is to help you generate value out of the data you already have.
So rather than data collection, Humanlytics focuses on data analysis to get insights and take action.
The goal behind Humanlytics is to make A.I powered analytics available (an activity once reserved for large, heavily funded organizations) to businesses large and small, no matter how limited their time and funding.
For Humanlytics, instead of collection data, the platform’s source of data is - deep integration of all your marketing channels.
Integrating multichannel data has two main advantages:
Creates a single source of truth for all your customer data.
It gives you a 360 view of their customers and the means to create a better cross channel experience.
This integration also includes standardization to turn multichannel campaign data into one comparable and commonly used format, for easier analysis.
The one factor Mixpanel and Humanlytics agree on at the data collection stage is, data accuracy.
Humanlytics uses a data-driven attribution model to accurately determine the true cost of ads, conversion generated, and other data points for your multichannel campaign.
It’s from this data that accurate values of important metrics like CAC and LTV can be derived.
While Mixpanel utilizes user_id instead of cookies to identify users based on their login information rather than their devices or browser.
This will enable you to accurately collect and combine data from sessions across multiple devices and browsers without multi-device and browser attribution issues.
2. Data Analysis
Mixpanel
Mixpanel’s approach to data analytics is a bit traditional with a do-it-yourself approach.
Where different user groups (cohorts) are compared to various events like signups, purchases, and add to cart.
Through this comparison, a number of reports like use-flow reports, funnels reports, retention, and revenue reports can be generated.
And if you are good at making sense of your data, you can get a lot of insights from these reports
For example: If you want to improve purchase conversions of new visitors, you’ll need to understand the steps taken by those who have already converted.
With Mixpanel, you can create a funnel report for new users with a “Purchase” as the last event.
From such a report, you can learn more about:
Which pages they visit before converting
Where you’re paying new visitors are coming from
The products they buy most
Their average order and lifetime value
From this report, you can get an insight into:
Which customer group to attract
Which marketing channels to use
Which pages to show these incoming visitors
Which products they are most likely to buy and the expected revenue.
More importantly, after a funnel has been constructed, Mixpanel shows you where users are falling off in the funnel and the individual users who didn’t convert.
This is how you can get to know the events that lead to drop-off and fix the issues.
Doing this will help to boost your store’s conversion rates at key stages.
But of course, not every marketer is good at data analysis. Slicing and dicing data in a way that shows you what to do next in order to achieve your goal.
That where Humanlytics comes in.
Humanlytics
Humanlytics takes a goal-first approach to analytics.
Whereby instead of showing a bunch of data points and reports, users set marketing goals they would like to achieve within a specified time.
And are then generate actionable insights into how you can achieve the set goal.
Every data and insight you receive is carefully selected to make sure it’s relevant to the goal you want to achieve.
This is possible because after all your marketing data is integrated, Humanlytics uses its A.I. engine DataSlinger.
To analyze data your multichannel data with different models including augmented, cohort, and predictive analytics.
So that when you set goals like:
Increase Product A sales by 15% in 2 months
Improve Product C add to cart rate by 20%
Reduce CAC for Facebook customers by 10% in 3 month
Increase LTV for customer segment F
You are able to receive actionable recommendations to take and achieve that goal.
One of the most important analyses for Humanlytics users is customer journey analysis.
Whereas Mixpanel shows user interactions within your website, Humanlytics maps user touchpoints across marketing channels.
Many businesses today run multichannel campaigns, but few have a clear picture of how each of these channels contributes to every conversion they generate.
A modern-day customer is said to have an average order of 7 -13 touchpoints with a brand before converting – Salesforce
These touchpoints can be across various channels like Facebook Ads, Google Ads, Email, and organic blog/video content spanning over a number of days or weeks.
Knowing all the channels involved in the customer journey will help you allocated resources to channels and campaigns depending on their contribution to the conversions generated.
And by using the Humanlytics data-driven attribution model, you can learn how each channel, ad, email, or any piece of content contributed to the conversion based on the customer experience delivered.
3. Action taking
Mixpanel
As analytics tools, Mixpanel and Humanlytics don’t take any marketing action. Their function is to help you collect data, analyze it, and generate insights.
Insights into actions you can take with your CRM, email marketing tools, or Ad optimization tools.
As much as Mixpanel can be used to send emails, SMS messages, push notifications and in-app messages to customers, this is not the core use of the platform.
This feature was developed as a quick solution to funnel drop-offs.
Where Mixpanel is connected to a CRM which enables you to send targeted messages to your individual user based on their behavior or cohort triggers.
The messages provide a more intuitive and personalized experience for users who might have otherwise churned or dropped off the funnel.
Humanlytics
The reason businesses care about analytics in the first place, is to generate insights into their operations and take informed actions.
But just like Mixpanel, Humanlytics doesn’t take any action, only informs you of the action you can take.
The only difference with Mixpanel at this stage is Humanlytics tracks, monitors, and reports the effectiveness of marketing actions taken.
So for a business with a goal like a 10% increase in sales for product B in 2 months.
Humanlytics will make informed recommendations for actions you can take including:
Increase Google Ad budget for campaign A by 5%
Send email automation 3G to all November subscribers
Change Facebook target audience to UK, Female 34-40
So, when any of these actions are taken, you can monitor their effectiveness in moving you towards your set goal.
This is to ensure that you are informed in real-time whether the actions you have taken have had any impact on your goals or not.
If you are on track, then you’ll achieve your sales goal. If not, you still get insights into what can be done.
Conclusion
Each of these platforms presents a unique value to businesses that want to better leverage their data.
Mixpanel makes the most sense: If you’re interested in learning about user interaction within your website/App and using that behavior data to improve customer experience.
Humanlytics makes the most sense: If you’re interested in learning more about how users interact with your brand across marketing channels before conversion and using all that data to actionable insights.
Analytics is supposed to provide you with the insights you need to achieve your set goals.
So as usual, keep it really simple.
Define your business goals, then choose an analytics solution that can help achieve those goals.