Mixpanel Device Mode Integration

After you have successfully instrumented Mixpanel as a destination in RudderStack, follow this guide to correctly send your events to Mixpanel in device mode.

Find the open source transformer code for this destination in the GitHub repository.

Identify

You can use the identify call to create or update a user in Mixpanel.

When sending events to Mixpanel with Simplified ID Merge, you need to pass deviceId generated by the Mixpanel SDK as anonymousId in the RudderStack calls to merge two profiles together successfully. For more information, see Mixpanel User Profiles documentation.

A sample identify call is as shown:

rudderanalytics.identify("12345", {
  firstname: "Alex",
  city: "New Orleans",
  country: "USA",
  phone: "8005550100",
  email: "alex@example.com"
})

Setting traits as People Properties and Super Properties

If Use Mixpanel People option is toggled on in the dashboard, you can set the identify traits as both Super Properties and People Properties. To do so, turn on the Automatically set all Traits as Super Properties and People Properties option in the dashboard settings.

You can also choose to filter your reports by both People Properties and Super Properties. This gives you better control over what traits you can set as a Super Property or People Property. To do this:

1. Disable the Automatically set all Traits as Super Properties and People Properties option in the dashboard.
2. Add the traits that you want to send to Mixpanel as Super Properties or People Properties in the Properties to send as Super Properties and Traits to set as People Properties fields respectively:

RudderStack sends all Mixpanel special traits as People Properties. Hence, you can only add the properties that are not in this list.

Properties to set only once

RudderStack lets you set the identify traits as Mixpanel properties whose values you do not want to change at the user profile level, that is, Mixpanel will not overwrite the existing property values. See Mixpanel documentation for more information on this feature.

To use this feature:

1. Enable the Use Mixpanel People option in the dashboard.
2. Add the traits in the Properties to set only once setting.

RudderStack expects the traits specified in the above field to be present in the context.traits object within the identify event.

For example, if your identify event contains the following and you specify address.city in the Properties to set only once field:

"traits": {
  "address": {
    "city": "London"
  }
}

...

"context": {
  "traits": {
    "address": {
      "city": "Berlin"
    }
  }
}

Then, RudderStack maps city as Berlin.

Reserved Mixpanel properties

Mixpanel has some reserved properties:

• $first_name
• $last_name
• $name
• $username
• $created
• $email
• $phone
• $avatar
• $city
• $country_code
• $region
• $unsubscribed

You should not create custom properties that begin with a $ sign.

Mixpanel People

RudderStack does not send data to Mixpanel People by default, as it usually requires you to upgrade your Mixpanel account. If you want to use this feature, you can turn on the Use Mixpanel People option in the RudderStack dashboard.

You can identify the user traits without the userId if you wish to add the people properties in Mixpanel before knowing the userId. To do so, see the following snippet:

rudderanalytics.identify({
  email: 'alex@example.com',
  name: 'Alex Keener'
})

Track

To track user events, use the track method with the event name and the associated properties.

When you select Simplified ID Merge in the Identity Merge dashboard setting, RudderStack sets the event’s userId and anonymousId using Mixpanel’s Simplified ID Merge API so that the two identifiers are glued to a single user profile.

A sample track call is as shown:

rudderanalytics.track("track event", {
    test_prop1: 50,
    test_prop2: "prop_value"
});

Track revenue

Mixpanel lets you track revenue events. If you send revenue as a property in your track event, RudderStack tracks it as a revenue event.

Revenue tracking is done with a distinct_id (userId that you provide in your identify call; if userId is not present then it will be associated with an anonymousId.)

A sample revenue track call is as shown:

rudderanalytics.track("Purchase", {
  revenue: 100,
  currency: "USD"
});

Track charge

If Use Mixpanel People setting is toggled on in your RudderStack dashboard and you include revenue as an event property, RudderStack will track a charge for the current user.

Page

RudderStack passes all page properties that you provide via the page call to Mixpanel, along with the other default properties. It sets the event name as Page for a page call and Screen for a screen call.

When you select Simplified ID Merge in the Identity Merge dashboard setting, RudderStack sets the event’s userId and anonymousId using Mixpanel’s Simplified ID Merge API so that the two identifiers are glued to a single user profile.

A sample page call is shown below:

rudderanalytics.page();

Page web device mode settings

RudderStack will send 1 event to Mixpanel per page call.

For device mode, RudderStack offers the following three options for page calls:

• Track All Pages with a Consolidated Event Name: This setting is on by default. RudderStack sends all page and screen calls with the name Loaded a Page with the corresponding properties of the call. This lets you leverage Mixpanel’s reporting capabilities for page/screen analytics in the best possible way.
• Track Categorized Pages to Mixpanel: RudderStack tracks the categorized pages to Mixpanel. If you turn on this setting in the dashboard, RudderStack sends a Viewed [<category>] Page event to Mixpanel. If the page name is also present in the event, then RudderStack sends a Viewed [<category> <page_name>] Page event.
• Track Named Pages to Mixpanel: RudderStack also tracks the named pages to Mixpanel. If you turn on this setting in the dashboard, RudderStack will send a Viewed [page_name] Page event. Note that this option has the least precedence and comes to effect only if the above two options are disabled in the RudderStack dashboard.

RudderStack gives the highest precedence to the Track All Pages with a Consolidated Event Name option even if Track Categorized Pages to Mixpanel and Track Named Pages to Mixpanel are turned on in the dashboard.

RudderStack expects atleast one of the three options listed above to be toggled on for sending the page events to Mixpanel using device mode.

Alias

The alias call lets you associate multiple identities of a known user.

The alias call is deprecated with the Simplified ID Merge dashboard setting.

A sample alias call is as shown:

analytics.alias('userId', `previousId`);

Group

The group call lets you link an identified user with a group such as a company, organization, or an account, and record any traits associated with that group, for example, company name, number of employees, etc. For more information on how the group call works in Mixpanel, see Mixpanel’s Group Analytics documentation.

RudderStack lets you record the custom traits associated with a user group and send this information to Mixpanel.

A sample group call is shown below:

rudderanalytics.group(
  "sample_group_id", {
    name: "Tech group",
    industry: "Technology",
    employees: 100,
  }
);

Group key

You can create group keys in the Mixpanel project settings, which act as the group identifiers in Mixpanel. To successfully send a group call to Mixpanel, you must specify at least one group key in the Group Key RudderStack dashboard setting:

Note the following points:

• If you map the groupId as a group key, RudderStack looks up its value in the following priority order:
  1. In message.groupId
  2. In message.traits.groupId
• If you map any other field as a group key, RudderStack looks up its value in message.traits.groupKey.
• You can specify multiple values for a group key and send them in an array in the group event payload.

Send historic events

Mixpanel supports importing historical event data. However, note that the event timestamp should be within the last 5 years. Mixpanel rejects any data older than this duration. To send historic events, provide the timestamp in the timestamp field of the message. RudderStack will then send the event with the same timestamp to Mixpanel.

Mixpanel special traits

The following table lists all properties that RudderStack sends to Mixpanel as special traits:

Increment events in Mixpanel People

To increment event counts in Mixpanel People, you can add the events in the Events to increment in People field.

For each event name added, RudderStack automatically calls Mixpanel and sets a user trait as Last + <event_name>. For example, if you add Logged In to the list of increment events, RudderStack will increment a user trait called Logged In and set a trait called Last Logged In with the current date and time.

Increment works for known users only. If you make a track call, you must identify your user first.

Increment properties in Mixpanel People

To increment properties in Mixpanel People, you can add them in the Properties to Increment in People field. RudderStack will call Mixpanel’s increment when you attach a number to the specified property. For example, 'items purchased': 5.

FAQ

Can I pass null and empty values for the properties?

Yes, RudderStack supports passing empty or null values for the properties sent to Mixpanel.

Questions? Contact us by email or on Slack