Mixpanel vs Amplitude Event Naming Conventions for Large Catalogs: Best Practices and Examples (2025)

Why Event Naming Conventions Matter More Than Ever in 2025

As enterprise analytics stacks grow in complexity, the number of tracked events in SaaS, eCommerce, and B2B platforms often balloons into the hundreds or thousands. This scale brings massive opportunities—but also unique pain points: event duplication, ambiguous naming, onboarding confusion, and insights lost in a "spaghetti" of poorly harmonized data. In 2025, robust event naming conventions and governance are no longer optional: they are critical to ensuring data trust, fast onboarding, cross-team alignment, and readiness for ML, compliance, and automation.

Consider This Real-World Scenario

• Problem: Your analytics dashboard has events named both "Signup", "Sign Up", "User_signed_up", and "signup_completed"—some tracking the same action, others subtly different. Teams waste hours deciphering which one to trust. New features add even more chaos.
• Solution: A strict, platform-wide Object-Action convention—let's say, "User Signed Up" everywhere, with past tense and clear documentation. Dashboards unify, confusion drops, and data quality rises.

Mixpanel vs Amplitude: Naming Rules Side-by-Side (2025)

Both Mixpanel and Amplitude have doubled down on the "Object-Action" format—favoring clear, past-tense, and title-cased events. But their tooling, workflows, and specific conventions diverge at scale.

Event Naming Syntax Comparison (With Concrete Examples)

General Conventions (2025 Best Practices):

• Format: Object-Action (Noun + Past Tense Verb)
• Tense: Always past tense ("Button Clicked", not "Click Button")
• Casing:
  • Mixpanel: Title Case preferred for events ("Form Submitted"), with snake_case for technical properties
  • Amplitude: Title Case for display, but most commonly uses snake_case or lowerCamelCase in implementation
• Avoid: Spaces (use underscores if necessary for code compatibility)

Official references: Mixpanel Lexicon, Amplitude Data Planning Playbook

Governance & Standardization Features: Keeping Large Catalogs Cohesive

Naming conventions only deliver value if enforced and governed at scale. Here’s how both platforms support enterprise best practices in 2025:

Mixpanel

• Lexicon: Central dashboard for managing, auditing, and documenting all events/properties. Enables admins to rename, enrich, and categorize events for analytic clarity.
• Data Standards (Enterprise): Strict rules engine. Admins can require event names match enforced casing, include descriptions, assign ownership, and attach screenshots. Violations are flagged directly in the UI for remediation.
• Automated status checks: Events must remain "compliant" with set standards, with enterprise tools for auditing and governance.
• Event lifecycle support: Warnings for deprecated or changed events, versioning planned for future releases.

Learn more about Mixpanel Data Standards

Amplitude

• Taxonomy: A centralized workspace to plan, review, approve, and manage all events and properties (with rich annotations). Includes audit logs and collaborative change management.
• Naming Enforcement: Rules for allowed format and casing—events not meeting standards are flagged and can be rejected at ingestion (especially with Amply SDKs).
• Amply SDK integration: Locked naming delivered directly to engineering via SDKs or APIs to prevent drift.
• Display Names: Separate, dashboard-facing names for enhanced clarity while retaining strict machine-friendly identifiers in the backend.

Citation: Amplitude Data Governance Documentation (formerly at https://help.amplitude.com/hc/en-us/articles/115002148327-Data-Governance-in-Amplitude) – resource currently unavailable.

Managing Large Catalogs: Best Practices and SOPs

As your event catalog grows, enforcing consistency and discoverability becomes harder—but absolutely essential. Here’s what works in 2025:

Key Process & SOP Recommendations

• Centralize taxonomies early: Use platform governance features to make event definition and review a core part of onboarding new teams/products.
• Document thoroughly: Event names, definitions, expected properties, and use rationale should all live in your taxonomy tool (or an external tracking plan synced to it).
• Assign ownership: Every event has a responsible owner—enables updates, questions, and lifecycle auditing.
• Run periodic audits: Schedule quarterly checks for duplicate, obsolete, or ambiguous events. Both platforms allow for easy event review via Lexicon/Taxonomy.
• Lock down via SDKs: Use tools like Amplitude's Amply or Mixpanel’s API enforcement to prevent accidental drift or rogue event additions.
• Avoid anti-patterns:
  • Don’t mix casing conventions within a catalog
  • Don’t allow events with unclear/overlapping meanings
  • Don’t skip deprecation/versioning reviews when changing event structure or definitions

Sample Onboarding Scenario (Merge/Migrate or Scale-Up)

1. Discovery: Audit existing events across all channels—export both Mixpanel and Amplitude event lists, mapping overlaps.
2. Harmonization: Rename/merge where necessary to fit the agreed Object-Action scheme; use Lexicon/Taxonomy bulk update tools.
3. Governance Activation: Set enforcement rules (title case, description required, etc.), require approval for new events, and communicate SOPs to all engineering/data/product staff.
4. Training: Conduct onboarding workshops for any new contributors. Provide examples and checklists.

Anti-Patterns and Pain Points: How to Avoid Analytics Nightmares

Based on practitioner feedback and field data from 2025:

• Event Drift: Unreviewed additions causing overlapping or redundant event names.
• Ambiguity: Lack of clear, written event definitions—leading to incorrect querying/insights.
• Catalog Fragmentation: Decentralized teams adopting divergent casing or naming practices.
• Spaghetti Tracking: Events added ad hoc, without governance, resulting in frustrating "which event do I use?" discussions.

How Platforms Solve These:

• Both Mixpanel and Amplitude enable admin-level enforcement and audit checks—but only if used consistently, with platform buy-in from leadership and data owners.
• Ongoing education, SOP adherence, and process discipline are key to long-term catalog health.

For hands-on anti-pattern guidance: Growth Method – Anti-Patterns

Preparing for the Future: ML, AI, and Privacy Compliance

• Both platforms: Fully support regulatory needs (GDPR/CCPA), with event anonymization and consent tracking options.
• Mixpanel excels at real-time analytics and dashboarding for fast-moving SaaS orgs.
• Amplitude is generally ahead in AI/ML-aligned event modeling, cohort analysis, and automated pipelines for future data applications.
• Best practice: Never send raw PII and use taxonomy tools to encode privacy compliance by design.

Actionable Recommendations (2025 Edition)

1. Embrace Object-Action, Past-Tense, and Consistent Casing—Universally apply, document, and enforce these conventions.
2. Leverage Platform Governance at Scale—Both Mixpanel Lexicon/Data Standards and Amplitude Taxonomy/Amply are musts for growing orgs.
3. Assign Clear Event Ownership and Document Everything—Helps futureproof your data and supports cross-team trust.
4. Run Recurring Catalog Audits & Reviews—Clean up, merge, and deprecate as business needs evolve.
5. Train All Data Contributors—Strong onboarding prevents most pain points.
6. Stay Aligned with Official Docs—Platform features and recommendations evolve. Reference Mixpanel Lexicon and Amplitude Data Governance documentation regularly for updates.

Further Resources & References

• Amplitude Data Planning Playbook
• Mixpanel Data Standards
• Growth Method – Object-Action Framework
• Avo Event Name Migration Guide

By approaching naming and governance strategically, teams can unlock scalable, trusted analytics—powering business insight, compliance, and AI-readiness in 2025 and beyond.