Mixpanel (Actions) Destination

Mixpanel lets you build better products through powerful, self-serve product analytics to help you convert, engage, and retain more users.

Benefits of Mixpanel (Actions) vs Mixpanel Classic

Mixpanel (Actions) provides the following benefits over the classic Mixpanel destination:

• Simpler setup - Mixpanel (Actions) has a streamlined default setup process making it easier to get started in a way that “just works”.
• More control - Actions-based destinations enable you to define the mapping between the data Segment receives from your source, and the data Segment sends to the destination.
• Additional default property mappings - More default mappings from the Segment context like app name, app namespace, device type, and more.
• Improved Groups support - Implementation of Segment Groups with Mixpanel Group Analytics is easier. If you’re already using Segment Groups, no code changes are required.
• E-commerce mappings - Mixpanel (Actions) accepts products nested within arrays in the Order Completed event as described in the Segment ecommerce spec.
• Batching Requests - If you have a lot of events, Mixpanel (Actions) provides more efficient way to receive and process those large sets of data.

Getting started

1. Go to your Mixpanel project settings. Copy the Mixpanel API Key and API Secret for your project.
2. In the your Segment workspace, click Catalog, then click Destinations.
3. Navigate to Destinations Actions, select “Mixpanel”, then click Add destination.
4. Choose which of your sources to connect the destination to. (You can connect more sources to the destination later.)

Connection modes for Mixpanel (Actions) destination

The Mixpanel (Actions) destination does not offer a device-mode connection mode. If you’re using one of Segment’s libraries (Analytics.js 2.0, Swift or Kotlin) with the Actions-framework version of the destination, you do not need the device-mode connection.

Destination Settings

Available Presets

Mixpanel (Actions) has the following presets:

Available Actions

Build your own Mappings. Combine supported triggers with the following Mixpanel-supported actions:

• Alias

• Group Identify User

• Track Event

• Identify User

• Track Purchase

• Increment Properties

Alias

Create an alias to a distinct id. This action is primarily supported for the sake of customers using the legacy identity management in their Mixpanel project. For new customers or those who have migrated to the new identity management in Mixpanel should use identify.

Alias is a Cloud action.

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Group Identify User

Updates or adds properties to a group profile. The profile is created if it does not exist. Learn more about Group Analytics.

Group Identify User is a Cloud action. The default Trigger is: type = "group"

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In the default configuration, Mixpanel (Actions) triggers this action when it receives a Group call.

This action sets or updates the properties of specific groups. Use this when you want to update properties on a group profile.

The Groups model in Segment is slightly different than in Mixpanel. To explain the conceptual difference, it may help to think in terms of database tables. In Segment, there is a single “groups” table. You can have as many group rows as you want and each row has a unique identifier. When you want to set traits on that group, you only need to know the group ID.

However, in Segment you cannot distinguish between “types” of groups. For example, a user can belong to a “Company” as well as a “Team”. There is no way to differentiate between those in Segment. In Mixpanel, you can have multiple group types which are defined by a group key. To update group traits in Mixpanel you need to specify the group key and group id.

Default group key

By default, the Mixpanel (Actions) destination uses $group_id as the group key. Create a new group in Mixpanel with $group_id as the group key to complete the configuration.

1. Go to your Mixpanel project settings.
2. Scroll to the “Group Keys” section. If this section doesn’t exist, you may not have the Group Analytics add-on.
3. Create the new group key:

Using a different group key

If you already have a group set up in Mixpanel with a different group key and wish to use that one, you can specify it in the Group Key field of the destination configuration.

Backwards-compatibility with Mixpanel Classic destination

In the classic destination, the “group ID” specified in the Segment SDK call was ignored and you were required to set a trait where the key of the trait is the group key and the value of that trait is the group ID. While that is no longer necessary, this behavior is supported in the Mixpanel (Actions) destination to ensure backwards-compatibility. If you specify a trait that matches specified group key, Mixpanel uses the value of that trait as the group ID.

Scenario 1: No group key trait specified

analytics.group("0e8c78ea9d97a7b8185e8632", {
  name: "Initech",
  industry: "Technology",
  employees: 329,
  plan: "enterprise",
  "total billed": 830
});

The group ID that Mixpanel will use is 0e8c78ea9d97a7b8185e8632.

Scenario 2: Group key trait IS specified

analytics.group("0e8c78ea9d97a7b8185e8632", {
  $group_id: "12345",
  name: "Initech",
  industry: "Technology",
  employees: 329,
  plan: "enterprise",
  "total billed": 830
});

The group ID that Mixpanel will use is 12345.

Track Event

Send an event to Mixpanel. Learn more about Events in Mixpanel

Track Event is a Cloud action. The default Trigger is: type = "track"

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Identify User

Set the user ID for a particular device ID or update user properties. Learn more about User Profiles and Identity Management.

Identify User is a Cloud action. The default Trigger is: type = "identify"

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Example

For example, if you map traits.email to Mixpanel, Segment automatically transforms this into Mixpanel’s reserved property $email.

Track Purchase

Send an ‘Order Completed’ Event to Mixpanel.

Track Purchase is a Cloud action. The default Trigger is: type = "track"

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When Generate Purchase Event Per Product is set to true, this setting effectively “flattens” the array of objects in the Order Completed’s products property by tracking a Product Purchased event for each item in the array. This enables a more sophisticated analysis on a per-product basis in Mixpanel. These Product Purchased events will contain all of the key-value pairs from their respective object in the products array as event properties, along with the order_id and checkout_id from the Order Completed event.

Increment Properties

Increment the value of a user profile property. Learn More.

Increment Properties is a Cloud action. The default Trigger is: type = "track"

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Migration from Mixpanel Classic

Assuming you’re already using Segment Cloud-mode, the Mixpanel (Actions) destination is expected to have no breaking changes when upgrading. With the exception of a few new properties added to your events in the new Actions destination, there should be no difference in the data received in Mixpanel when using either of the Mixpanel destinations.

If you want to confirm, you can configure the new destination to point to a different Mixpanel project and connect it to the same source(s) as the Classic destination and manually verify before fully switching over.

Mixpanel settings mapping

Troubleshooting

Track events are not attributed to Mixpanel Groups

If the Mixpanel (Actions) destination uses $group_id as the group key, ensure that the mappings handling your track events have the field for Group ID mapped to a valid value. By default, this field maps to the event variable context.groupId.

To send Track events with a custom Group key, include the key as a property of Track events. For example:

analytics.track('Example Event', { custom_group_key : 'group1' });

Failed events due to timestamp

If your integration is correct and you are still seeing failed events, review and verify that you are sending all date properties as UTC time format, due to Mixpanel timestamp format requirements.

Failed events due to messageId

Segment maps the messageId of a Segment event to Mixpanel’s insert_id value. If you are generating your own messageId, ensure the format complies with Mixpanel’s insert_id requirements. For more information, see Mixpanel’s Import Events documentation.

Failing to generate a messageId that complies with Mixpanel’s insert_id standard might result in a 400 Bad Request error from Mixpanel.

Why is Boardman, Oregon appearing in my users’ profile location field?

If you are seeing traffic from Boardman or see Segment as the browser, you might be sending server side calls to your Mixpanel (Actions) destination. To correctly populate your users’ profile location field, manually pass the IP information in the context object from the server.

Why is the Operating System field empty in Mixpanel?

Mixpanel captures the Operating System field from the “OS Name” field in Segment. For Analytics.js sources, ensure that context.userAgentData.platform is correctly mapped to the “OS Name” field in your destination mappings. If this mapping is missing or misconfigured, the Operating System field may appear empty in Mixpanel.