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.
Export the conjoint market simulator
You can export the conjoint market simulator as a Microsoft Excel workbook.
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.
Configure scenarios in the market simulator
Define the values for your product alternatives in the Simulator sheet.