Differences Between Google Analytics and Mixpanel
Today, web analytics is the key to measure and analyze web data in order to understand user behavior across web pages. Its focus is to analyze web data and determine the activity and behavior of a user on a website i.e. how many users visited, which pages got hits, what items searched more etc. Web analytics provide insights of data and it also helps to improve the user experience for the website since it measures page hits, views, clicks, etc. In order to perform web analytics, there are many different tools available in the market which are smart enough to achieve your organization’s goals. Some of the best web analytics tools are Google Analytics, Yahoo web analytics, Adobe Analytics, Crazy Eggs, Mixpanel, Click tale, etc. Here we will see a detailed comparison between two of these most popular tools: Google Analytics vs Mixpanel.
Both these tools have some overlapping features, so let us compare these two to choose the right analytics tool.
Head to Head Comparison Between Google Analytics and Mixpanel (Infographics)
Below Is the Top 9 Comparison Between Google Analytics vs Mixpanel
Key Differences Between Google Analytics and Mixpanel
Below are the lists of points, describe the key differences
Although both these tools have most of the features in common, the key differences between these two Google Analytics vs Mixpanel can be described based on their speed, tracking method, pricing model, data processing time and funnel analysis. Some of the major differences are explained below:
1. Tracking Method:
The tracking mechanism in Google Analytics is Page Based. It tracks the traffic on your website by page hits and gathers visitor information. It makes use of a javascript code for tracking purpose. On the other hand, the Mixpanel tracking mechanism is event-centric i.e. it tracks visitor actions rather than page hits. The events can be a button click, video surfing, etc.
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2. Real-Time Analysis:
For real-time analysis, Google Analytics will take a long time for report generation in case of a huge amount of data. It could even take more than 24 hours for data processing.
Mixpanel will be a great choice for real-time tracking. It can update the whole data within seconds. It is ideal for the instant processing of real-time data.
3. Funnel Analysis:
To measure a series of events performed by a visitor, funnel analysis is done. In the case of Google Analytics, a customer has to specify all the steps of a funnel in advance. These funnels can be created on every page but they are not accurate.
However, Mixpanel funnel analysis is exceptionally well. With only a few simple steps a user can create funnels in the mix panel. The mechanism is very flexible and data analysis is accurate.
4. User Tracking:
In order to track an individual user, Google Analytics makes use of browser cookies. This mechanism will not work well in case the same user visits from multiple devices.
Mixpanel can overcome this by performing cross-device user tracking. It has the ability to track individual users.
5. Retention Analysis:
For a small business, the cohort analysis done by Google Analytics is enough for decision making, but it does not provide the analysis such as which feature is most used by visitors, what is the behavior of new visitors, etc. Mixapanel will provide you answers to all these questions with its retention analysis feature.
6. Segmentation and Reporting:
Both the tools are good with respect to segmentation and reporting. The only difference is Mixpanel will do this in a few simple steps, however, Google Analytics requires some more steps.
7. Pricing:
Google Analytics provides free services if there are less than 10 million hits per month on your site, it charges for hits more than 10 million.
In Mixpanel, the pricing model is based on a number of data points.
Pros and Cons of Google Analytics and Mixpanel:
1. Google Analytics:
Pros:
1.Free service for most use cases.
2.Frequent releases of new features.
3. Free training to learn the tool.
4. The tag manager of Google Analytics is helpful for non-technical users.
Cons:
1.Lack of support.
2.Cannot perform individual user based analysis.
3.Not a good solution for real-time traffic monitoring.
2. MixPanel:
Pros:
1. It allows real-time monitoring.
2. An interface is easy to learn and adapt.
3.A great feature of Funnel analysis.
4.Easy to use and fully supported.
5.Much sophisticated API.
6.Intuitive Machine learning interface
Cons:
1. Mixpanel mostly provides paid services.
2.Difficult code integration process.
Google Analytics vs Mixpanel Comparison Table
Below are the lists of points, describe the comparisons
| Basis of Comparison | Google Analytics | Mixpanel |
| History | The tool was launched by Google in November 2005 | Founded in the year 2009 in San Francisco, California |
| Customer Types | Suits for all customer types i.e. for the small, medium as well as large-scale organizations or individual users. | It also works well with all customer types as it provides different plans based on customer category. |
| Pricing Model | Google Analytics provides free lifetime packages for small-scale organizations, it charges for some advanced features based on customer requirements. | Mixpanel provides six different pricing plans to its customers depending upon the feature requirement. It is free, Startup as well as Enterprise plans which can be customized on a need basis. |
| Customer Support | Google Analytics provides support to its customers over emails and phone. They also provide training sessions. | Mixpanel also provides support for email and phone; additionally, it also gives ticketing system based support. |
| Good | Free of cost availability | Excellent funnel analytics |
| A/B Testing | Only for Web | Only for Mobile |
| Speed/ Data Processing Time | It may take a few hours to generate reports from data | Data will be available within a few seconds |
| Learning | Simple to learn | Requires some knowledge about flows and events to begin with tracking |
| Tracking Method | For Page Based Tracking | For Event-Based Tracking |
Conclusion
To make it simple, both Google Analytics vs Mixpanel has some unique abilities. It depends on customer needs to choose an appropriate tool from their organization. None of these tools will cost you much. But after considering all the differences between these two tools, we can conclude that for small or medium-scale organizations, Google Analytics will work well and for organizations that require fast and focussed real-time analysis and tracking capabilities, Mixpanel will be the go-to-tool. Some of the customers even use a combination of these two tools to get the best of both.
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