Understanding Discrepancies in Event Metrics Between Graph Types

Why, with the exact same metrics + filter, and the exact same time range, the absolute number of event occurrences higher than in another graph? The only difference is a breakdown, and that one of them is a pie chart and the other one a metric.

2 comments

kapa.ai
APP
·
·
Hi Janine W., Please stand by as I search the Mixpanel knowledge base for an AI-powered answer. I normally take about 15 seconds or so. In case AI cannot answer your question, feel free to reach out to Mixpanel support at mixpanel.com/get-support. If you have follow-up questions for this thread, please tag me again with your question: @kapa.ai <follow-up question> 👋
Feel free to ask a follow-up question once I've answered by mentioning me with @kapa.ai
kapa.ai
APP
·
·
This discrepancy you're observing is likely due to how Mixpanel handles breakdowns, especially when it comes to list properties. Let me explain based on the information from the Mixpanel documentation.When you apply a breakdown to a metric, Mixpanel by default shows how many unique users contributed to each segment. This can lead to a situation where the sum of individual segments is higher than the total unique users. This is because one user could contribute to multiple segments.According to the Mixpanel Docs on Insights, when you apply a breakdown: "Mixpanel tells you how many unique users contributed to each segment. For example, in the image below, you can see there were a total of 2441 unique users, while the sum of individual segments is more than 3000. This is correct. That is because one user could have seen both a Home Page and a Shop Page, so they get counted as a user towards both segments."This behavior is particularly noticeable when dealing with list properties. As explained in the Mixpanel Docs on List Property Support, when breaking down a list property, each of the list's contents is evaluated as a single item. This can lead to higher numbers in the breakdown view compared to the total.The difference between the pie chart and the metric view is likely due to how these visualizations handle the data. The pie chart is probably showing the broken-down data, while the metric view is showing the total without the breakdown applied.To get a more accurate distribution of users across segments, you can use the advanced control for Uniques, which allows you to choose which segment to associate a user with (either the first or last segment in the chart date range).If you need to investigate this further or have more specific questions about your particular use case, I recommend reaching out to Mixpanel support for a more detailed analysis of your data and report configuration.
kapa.ai is still learning and improving, please let me know how I did by reacting below.
ℹ️ Tip: Mention @kapa.ai in the thread for follow-ups or DM the app for 1-to-1 help.

Understanding Discrepancies in Event Metrics Between Graph Types | Mixpanel Community