Understanding Unique Users vs. Total Events in Analytics | Mixpanel Community

Understanding Unique Users vs. Total Events in Analytics

Hi! I have some questions about the difference between unique users and total events. As I understand it, a unique user refers to a real user who has completed the sign-up process for my service, while total events are counted based on unique users, including those who have not signed up. Is that correct?

3 comments

Andrew S.
·
·
It depends on the event. A signup, since unique to a user, is probably the same for total events and unique users. But a login could be different as a user could login and log out and log in again. So total events could be more than unique users
🙌1
Idan D.
·
·
Total Events counts every time the event happens (Regardless of who triggers the event) and Unique Users counts the total amount of users that triggered the event (Regardless of the number of times the user triggered that same event). Users can be anonymous or identified, they’re identified after they completed the signup process (Assuming “Identify” was done correctly) - If not - Unique users might trigger once as anonymous and again as a “Real” user… Otherwise Unique users count will provide you with “How many users did X given a specific timeframe” and Total Events will provide you with “How many times did X happen given a specific timeframe”.
🙌1
Alexander K.
·
·
Thank you for your explanation! The issue I was experiencing was that I wanted to know the total number of customers who engaged with our marketing message. However, starting from yesterday, the data was being displayed differently. The problem was that when measuring the purchase conversion rate compared to the number of inbound users, our service only allows registered users to make a purchase. Because of this, when filtering by Unique Users, the purchase conversion rate was being calculated too high. This issue started occurring yesterday. For example, a campaign that originally had a purchase conversion rate of 14% was being measured based only on registered users, leading to an inflated conversion rate of nearly 80%. That’s why I reached out with my question. However, the issue has now been resolved, and I really appreciate the additional conceptual explanations you provided!