The conjoint market simulator for modern reports

The conjoint market simulator lets you mix and match levels to simulate different product profiles, and see how popular the product profiles may be with consumers.

Note: The conjoint market simulator is only supported on the latest version of Excel (Excel for Microsoft 365).

Export the conjoint market simulator

You can export the conjoint market simulator as a Microsoft Excel workbook.

The analysis for the choice-based conjoint question must be completed before you can export the conjoint market simulator workbook. The analysis may take up to one hour.

Click the App Drawer and select Activities, and then open a survey that contains a Choice-Based Conjoint question.
On the activity toolbar, click Report.
Click Modern Reporting.
Open a report that contains the analyzed Choice-Based Conjoint question.
Add any banners to your report that you want to have available to segment data in the conjoint market simulator.
For example, if you want to be able to segment by age or gender in the market simulator, you need to add these questions or profile variables as banners.
Click the options menu for the tile and select Export Market Simulator Workbook (.xlsx)
In the Export Market Simulator Workbook (.xlsx) dialog, configure the settings for alternatives and attributes:
1. In the Number of Alternatives text box, enter or select the number of product attribute combinations you want to test.
  You can enter between 2 and 10 alternatives.
2. Optional: In the Attribute Interpolation section select any numeric attributes you want to interpolate and the step value. The step value must be an integer between 1 and 10.
  Note: The attribute you select for interpolation must use American decimals (9.99). Attributes that do not have this format are excluded from the list. These common formats are all invalid:
  - 400,55
  - 1,000
  - 300.00
  - $500
  - 2.000
3. To add additional numeric attributes, click Add Attribute and then select the numeric attribute and the step value.
4. Click Export.
In the Active Exports dialog, click Download next to the market simulator workbook.
Follow your web browser's prompts to download and open the conjoint market simulator in Excel.
When the download is complete, you can open the file from your web browser, or from the folder where it is saved on your computer. For example, in Google Chrome you can access the download from the top-right corner of the browser.
Open the market simulator workbook in Excel and click Enable Editing.

What the market simulator does

The market simulator lets you configure 2-10 competing product alternatives (combinations of attributes), and then uses each respondent's individual part-worth utilities to calculate which product they'd most prefer. You specify the number of alternatives to include when you export the workbook.

It outputs two share metrics:

Simulated Share of Preference: Rather than forcing each participant to pick exactly one winner, it asks: given this person's preferences, how likely are they to choose each alternative? Every participant contributes a fractional vote to each option, and those fractions are averaged across the sample. It is a logit-based probabilistic share.
Simulated First Choice: The percentage of respondents for whom each alternative has the highest simulated preference, with ties split equally. Each respondent is assigned entirely to the single alternative with the highest Share of Preference value. Each participant is assigned to their single highest-utility option.

Simulated Share of Preference is generally the more useful and stable metric for most analytical purposes. Because it uses the full probability distribution rather than just the winner, it's more sensitive to small changes in product configuration or price — it picks up on shifts in preference even when they don't flip anyone's top choice. It also tends to be less noisy with smaller sample sizes. Use it when you're comparing scenarios, optimizing product configurations, or looking at gradual effects like price elasticity.

First Choice is more appropriate when the purchase context is truly winner-take-all. For example, a single-item purchase where the consumer buys exactly one product like a laptop and is unlikely to switch easily. It tends to produce more extreme, spread-out shares (the leading alternative looks stronger, weaker alternatives look weaker) because it doesn't credit a product for being someone's strong #2. It's also more intuitive to explain to stakeholders: "X% of the market would choose this product first."

A product can rank well on Share of Preference (people like it okay across the board) but poorly on First Choice (it's rarely anyone's top pick). This suggests that it's a compromise option rather than a true preference leader.

If you selected attribute interpolation when you exported the workbook from the report, you can test values not explicitly tested in the survey by blending adjacent utility estimates.

When you select an interpolated attribute in the market simulator the drop-down list includes the values in your survey question plus all of the interpolated values. For example, if the Price attribute options in the survey were $8.99, $12.49, $15.99, and $19.49 with a step value of 1, the drop-down list will include $9.99, $10.99, $11.99, etc. Any of these values can be used by the market simulator.

The Excel Workbook (.xlsx) structure

This is an overview of the sheets contained in the market simulator workbook.

Sheet Name	Description
Simulator Settings	Contains study metadata including title, date, survey prompt text, respondent count, and settings defined when the worksheet was exported parameters (Number of Attributes and Attribute Interpolation details).
Simulator	The user-facing interface where analysts configure 2-10 product alternatives and work with simulated market shares (Share of Preference and First Choice). This is the "front end" of the tool.
Control	Maps each alternative's attribute/level selections into numeric factor codes used by the calculation engine. Do not edit this tab.
Calc	The core computation sheet. For each respondent, it calculates the utility of each configured alternative, applies the logit model, and outputs predicted shares. It contains columns for raw utilities (aValues), exponentiated values, max-choice counts, and a Check field. Do not edit this tab.
Attributes	A lookup table defining the attributes and their levels.
Util	Contains individual-level partworth utilities (from Hierarchical Bayes estimation) for all respondents across all attribute-level combinations, plus a NONE utility if the "Display None" option was selected in the Survey Builder. Do not edit this tab.
Segmentation	Maps each respondent ID to a segment. If you had banners applied to your when you exported the workbook, they are captured as segments in this sheet which you can use to add Slicers to the Simulator sheet. These Slicers can be used to segment the Market Simulator table. For more information on adding Slicers, see Add a Slicer to segment the market simulator
ZCD	Zero-Centered Differences data per respondent, used for computing attribute importance scores. Contains both level-specific ZCD values and rolled-up overall importance per attribute. Do not edit this tab.
<attribute_name>_interpolatedNumbers	A lookup table enabling continuous testing between the tested attribute points using linear interpolation weights. This allows the market simulator to accept any incremented values between those anchors. For example, if you selected Price as an attribute to interpolate and the step value as 1, the market simulator will be able to accept any value in $1 increments between the tested price points ($8.99, $12.49, $15.99, $19.49), such as $9.99 or $13.49. If you selected multiple attributes to interpolate when you exported the workbook, multiple sheets will be included in the market simulator. The interpolation attributes and step values are listed in the Simulator Settings sheet. Do not edit this tab.
ConvergencePlot	A copy of the convergence plot displayed in the associated Choice-Based Conjoint tile in the report.

Add a Slicer to segment the market simulator

Configure the workbook to segment the market simulator on your banner columns.

To use slicers you must have added one or more banners to your report before exporting the market simulator workbook

Open the workbook and, if required click Enable Editing.
Click the Segmentation tab and select the table.
Click the Insert tab on the ribbon and then click Slicer.
In the Insert Slicers dialog, select the slicers to add to the workbook and click OK.
Copy the new slicer, switch to the Simulator tab, and paste the slicer above or beside the Market Simulator table.
Select one or more answers to segment the market simulator results.
Select an individual answer, and use the icons at the top of the slicer to multi-select answers and clear the filter.
The results are updated in both the Market Simulator and the Summary Zero-Centered Differences (ZCD) areas of the sheet.

Configure scenarios in the market simulator

Define the values for your product alternatives in the Simulator sheet.

Use the alternatives in the sheet to specify a realistic set of products or services.

Open the conjoint market simulator workbook and click the Simulator tab.
For each alternative listed, select the combination of attributes for a product or service you want to include in your scenario.

The number of alternatives listed depends of the number you selected when you exported the workbook.
Select the drop-down in the Enable cell and select Disable to disable any alternatives you are not using in your scenario.

Important: Leaving unused alternatives enabled inflates the denominator in share calculations, reducing the simulated share for all active alternatives and making results harder to interpret.
Optional: Filter the market simulator on any of the available Slicers to segment the scenario.

This option is only available if you had banners applied to your report when you exported the workbook. For information on setting up Slicers, see Add a Slicer to segment the market simulator.
As you work through your analysis, edit the alternatives as necessary to answer your research questions.
The values in the Market Simulator and Summary Zero-Centered Differences (ZCD) areas of the Simulator sheet are updated dynamically as you make changes to the alternatives.