

Funnel Analysis with Mixpanel (YC S09) - trefn
http://blog.mixpanel.com/funnel-analysis-with-mixpanel

======
jonmc12
I was looking for a web analytics solution recently. I looked at Mixpanel, but
it was hard for me to understand what benefits the product had over google
analytics other than being real-time.

Event tracking / funnel analysis look about the same on both products.

Maybe I'm waiting for the article - 'how to use realtime analytics to improve
your site'.

~~~
patio11
_Event tracking / funnel analysis look about the same on both products._

I use both.

1) The funnel visualization in Mixpanel is better, particularly for longer
funnels.

2) Tracking interactions which do not map on a one-to-one basis with pageviews
is a pain in the keister in Google Analytics. For example, purchases for me
are consummated off-site and there is no guarantee that the customer will
return to my Thank You page to get tagged by GA's conversion code. However,
since the off-site system does ping a script on my server, I can use
Mixpanel's API to complete the last step in that customer's funnel. (Finally,
my number of conversions reported actually bears strong resemblance to the
number of sales I made in the same period.)

3) Google Analytics really, really is suboptimal for funnel segmentation along
any axis which isn't available to the browser. For example, a logged in user
to my site might be a guest, a trial user, or a paying customer. I want to
know completion rates for a particular interaction broken down by that role.
This is, literally, one line of code added to my internal Mixpanel API. If I
were using Google Analytics, I'd have to start tagging many pages with arcane
Javascript to cookie up the visitor with utm_some_garbage_here_argh, then
configure custom segments in Google Analytics, then finally be able to sort by
that.

------
gonepostal
Has anyone been having trouble with mixpanel?

Since yesterday I've been trying to investigate it for analytics for a new app
I'm building. I follow their _dead_ simple examples and I never get any data
logged. I'm not sure if it's something I'm doing or if the service is having
trouble.

~~~
suhail
You might've tried while we were undergoing some maintainence, you should see
your data in your project today though.

If you still have problems email us at support@mixpanel.com--always
responsive.

------
swthomas
This reads like an advertisement.

