Purp Social mapped their full user journey with Mixpanel, driving a 47% lift in freemium-to-premium conversions and a 44.4% jump in daily in-app engagement.
The company
Purp Social is a Brazilian app-based social platform that helps people make friends across the globe by connecting them around shared interests. The product runs on a freemium-to-premium model, where users can either watch ads to unlock more interactions or upgrade to a premium subscription for an ad-free experience with enhanced features.
The challenge
Purp's core goal was to grow engagement by driving more conversations inside the app. But their analytics setup was focused on monitoring traffic, leaving them with a fragmented view of the user journey. Without clear insight into what specific actions users were taking inside the product, the team struggled to identify what was actually driving freemium-to-premium conversion.
In GA4 we could see that people were searching for 'X' 100 times a day, but we couldn't understand what happened after that. The most critical part for us was building a clear user journey and understanding exactly what actions users were taking within the app. — Rafael Djuric, CEO at Purp Social
The solution
Purp chose Mixpanel to gain deep, actionable insight into user behavior and make data-informed decisions. As Mixpanel's partner in Latin America, Bildung Data supported the team on implementation and event modeling, helping them map the end-to-end user journey and pinpoint the key touchpoints driving engagement and conversion.
Purp also tapped into the Mixpanel for Startups program, which gives eligible companies free access to Mixpanel for their first year. With that foundation in place, the team could focus on product changes that addressed real user needs and ship more impactful iterations.
The results
47% increase in freemium-to-premium conversions. With better visibility into user behavior, Purp was able to identify and optimize the key drivers of premium upgrades, turning more freemium users into loyal subscribers.
44.4% increase in daily gem collection. Mixpanel helped Purp track in-app engagement by analyzing actions tied to gem collection — a core feature that rewards specific interactions. After spotting friction in the app's layout, the team redesigned the screen and optimized the display order of items, lifting daily gem collection from 1.17M to 1.69M.
Onboarding improved by catching critical bugs. Mixpanel data also surfaced two bugs hurting the iOS onboarding flow: a button issue that caused users to drop off the screen prematurely, and an image upload error that broke the file picker. Catching these before a major release let the team prioritize fixes and ensure a smoother onboarding experience.
When you're building a product, ideas only exist in the creator's mind until they're tested in real use. Without user data, it's difficult to understand how people are actually engaging or whether they're getting value from the product. Mapping the journey is how you find the moments that drive satisfaction and adoption. — Rafael Djuric, CEO at Purp Social
Impact
With Mixpanel in place, Purp Social moved from operating on assumptions to making decisions backed by real data. The team can now optimize every product iteration, identify high-impact opportunities, and build a more seamless experience that drives engagement and conversion over time.
