Competitive Analysis (Conjoint)

When to use it

It suits questions like these:

• With competitors’ prices known, how does your price affect your preference share?
• As your price rises, which competitor picks up the share you lose, and how much of it shifts to not buying at all?
• On a shelf with competitors, which of the prices you test brings in the highest revenue?
• Which consumer groups are more price-sensitive, and which switch to a competitor more easily?

To measure willingness to pay (WTP) alone, without competitors, Price Analysis (WTP) is a better fit; to measure how much a feature adds to the price, use Feature Price Impact. If you can’t decide, see Choosing the right method.

Two conjoint types

On the design page, you choose one of two conjoint types. Choice-Based Conjoint (CBC) is selected by default.

In CBC, the order of the products is shuffled in every question so that being at the front of the shelf doesn’t influence the choice; Neither is always last.

Before you start

• Prepare the names of up to 5 competitors and their current shelf prices.
• Decide the lowest price, the highest price and the step you’ll test for your product.
• Competitive Analysis is available in the General Research and Fashion verticals. Populations aren’t shared between verticals, so set up the study in the vertical your population belongs to.
• Check your balance. In the New Research flow, you need at least 500 credits to create a General Research study, and at least 50 credits to create a new population in Fashion.
• If you plan to look at results by segment, choose a large population; small segments aren’t shown in the charts.

Setting up the study

Choosing the method and population

1. In the sidebar, click New Research.
2. Choose the General Research or Fashion card.
3. Choose the Competitive Analysis card in General Research, or the Rekabet Analizi (Conjoint) (Competitive Analysis) card in Fashion.
4. Select an existing population or create a new one.

Once you’ve chosen the population, the design page opens: Competition Analysis (Conjoint) in General Research, Rekabet Analizi (Conjoint) in Fashion. The population step is covered in detail on Starting a new study.

Entering the product, competitors and prices

1. On the Select Research Type card, choose Choice Based Conjoint (CBC) or Dynamic Conjoint.
2. To start from a saved survey, choose one on the Select from Saved Surveys card. The list shows only surveys saved with the selected conjoint type. If you click Remove selection, what you had entered before comes back.
3. In the Your Product section, enter the Product Name.
4. In the Product Description field, enter the pack size, contents and key features. This text is shown to the personas.
5. In the Competitors section, enter the Competitor Product name and the Competitor Price (₺). You can also fill in the Competitor description (optional) field.
6. To add another competitor, click Add Competitor and fill in the same fields. When there’s more than one competitor, you can delete one with the bin icon on its row.
7. In the Price Ladder section, enter the Minimum Price (₺), Maximum Price (₺) and Price Step (₺) values.
8. Check the prices generated under Price Points (… items). To test a price that isn’t on the ladder, click Add Custom Price.
9. Click Next Step. In General Research, click Continue in the confirmation dialog that opens.

At this point, the app runs a market price check based on your product name and price range. If the range looks out of line with the market, the Price might not be realistic dialog opens with Typical range: and Estimated market price: values. To fix the range, click Cancel. To continue with the same range, tick I want to proceed anyway and click Continue.

Previewing and starting

1. On the Research Preview page, check the Person Count, Price Point, Competitor Count and Credit Usage values on the Experiment Summary card.
2. Click Start.
3. In the Are you sure you want to continue? dialog, click Continue.

You can leave the progress screen; the study keeps running in the background. If you stay on the screen, you’re taken to the report page when the study finishes. Error states are covered on Starting a new study.

Argus can also fill in this form for you. You can rerun a saved competitive survey with Quick Research.

Settings and limits

The ladder starts at the lowest price and rises in increments of the step. The highest price is included only if it falls exactly on one of these steps. If fewer than 3 or more than 16 prices result, a warning beginning with Number of price points must be between 3 and 16. appears; change the range or the step.

Credit calculation

The estimated credits appear in the Credit Usage field on the Research Preview page, in “balance/estimate” format. The number of competitors doesn’t change the credits.

Dynamic Conjoint’s willingness-to-pay questions also cover one step below and one step above your ladder; that’s where the +2 in the Fashion formula comes from. Each price you add with Add Custom Price also counts as a price point.

Example: in a 100-persona population, say the lowest price is ₺500, the highest price is ₺1,000 and the step is ₺100. The ladder has 6 prices (₺500, ₺600, ₺700, ₺800, ₺900 and ₺1,000). For CBC in General Research, the estimate is 6 × 100 = 600 credits.

Credits are deducted after responses are generated successfully; a study whose response generation fails spends no credits. For CBC in General Research, the credits deducted are based on the responses the study actually produced. For Dynamic Conjoint in General Research, the preview shows price points × personas and your balance must cover that amount for the study to start; when the study completes, however, 1 credit per persona is deducted. In General Research, if the study fails at the analysis step after the responses have been saved, the deducted credits aren’t refunded automatically; before restarting, send a request in the Billing category from the Support page.

In Fashion, you can’t click Start if your balance doesn’t cover the estimate. In General Research, Start stays clickable. If your balance is zero, the warning “Not enough credits to start the survey.” appears and the study doesn’t start; if your balance doesn’t cover the estimate, the study fails without generating responses and no credits are deducted. For the general rules, see Credits.

Reading the results

You can find the report later on the Reports page with the Competition filter. At the top of the report are the name of the conjoint type (Choice Based Conjoint (CBC) or Dynamic Conjoint) and the Refresh, Download PDF, Download Excel and Delete buttons. The structure shared by all report pages is covered in Reading a report.

Summary boxes

The revenue index used in the report is the price multiplied by the number of personas who chose your product at that price.

Demand & Revenue

• Preference Distribution: Shows, as lines, the share of your product, each competitor (with its name and fixed price) and Neither at each price. The shares at the same price add up to 100%; the optimal price is marked.
• Revenue Curve: Shows the revenue index at each price. This value isn’t a sales forecast in lira, and it grows with the population size; use it to compare prices with each other.
• Conversion Rate by Price: Shows only your product’s preference percentage at each price. The more steeply the curve falls, the more price-sensitive the population is.
• Segment-Based Analysis: Choose a dimension in Breakdown: and Purchase Rate (%), Demand or Revenue in Metric:. The chart draws a separate line across prices for each segment. The Purchase-Rate Difference metric, available only in Dynamic Conjoint, subtracts the whole population’s share at the same price from the segment’s share.
• Price Comparison Table (Dynamic Conjoint only): Gives the Preference %, Demand and Expected Revenue values for each price; the optimal price’s row is highlighted.

Read switching to competitors from the Preference Distribution chart. As your price rises, your product’s line falls; the competitor whose line picks up the share you lose is the one the personas are switching to. If the Neither line rises, the personas you lose aren’t switching to a competitor; they’re not buying anything.

Segment Analysis, Price Scenario and Crosstab

• Segment Analysis: Choose a dimension with Demographic Breakdown:. Segment Preference Distribution shows the share of your product, the competitors and Neither in each segment, averaged over all prices. In Dynamic Conjoint, the Segment-Based Optimal Price table also gives each segment’s optimal price.
• Price Scenario: Choose a dimension in Breakdown: and a price in Price:. The chart shows each segment’s accept and refuse rates at that price. Accept is the share who chose your product; refuse is the share who chose a competitor or Neither.
• Crosstab: Appears when there are at least two breakdown dimensions. It crosses two dimensions (e.g. age and gender) and gives each combination’s optimal price in the Segment Combinations — Optimal Price & Revenue table.

Breaking results down by segment

The breakdown lists include Age, Gender, Education, Income Group, SES and, if the population has segmentation, Market Segment. In CBC, if you added a custom feature to the population, Custom Feature is listed too.

Dynamic Conjoint also offers six shopping tendencies: Price-Value Consciousness (PVC), Quality-Brand Orientation (QBO), Deal Proneness (DEA), Novelty Seeking (NOV), Shopping Hedonism (HED) and Spending Tendency (POP). For what these scores measure, see Persona profiles. Each tendency is split into Low (<45), Typical (45–55) and High (>55) groups.

• Dynamic Conjoint automatically selects the dimension that shows the largest difference between segments.
• Segments with fewer than 5 personas are hidden; if no segments are left, the message Insufficient segment data (at least 5 participants per segment required) appears.
• When you change the dimension, the chart updates immediately; no rerun or credits are needed.

For the difference between income group and socio-economic status (SES), and for the other dimensions, see Segmentation.

Exporting

• Download Excel: While the file is being prepared, the button reads Downloading Excel…. The Excel file has six sheets: Meta, Executive Summary, Market Share Curves, Segment Impact, Population and Raw. The Market Share Curves sheet gives each option’s share at each price and the number of personas counted at that price (Valid N). In CBC, personas whose response couldn’t be obtained at a price are left out of that price’s calculation; they aren’t counted as Neither. In Dynamic Conjoint, the summary sheet also includes willingness-to-pay values such as Median WTP and Mean WTP.
• Download PDF: In the PDF segment selection dialog, tick the breakdown dimensions to include in the report and click Generate PDF. The first three eligible dimensions are preselected; you can change the selection with Select all and Clear.

For file names and download details, see Exporting and downloading.

Tips and common mistakes

• Enter competitor prices as their current shelf prices. These prices stay fixed throughout the study, and all results are read against them.
• Fill in the product and competitor descriptions; personas compare the products by their names, descriptions and prices. In CBC, personas are reminded that a high price doesn’t by itself mean better quality.
• A competitor row with a name but no price is dropped without warning if there’s at least one complete competitor. Before starting, check the Competitor Count in the preview.
• A high Neither share can mean the whole shelf is too expensive or irrelevant for this population.
• Segment Preference Distribution is an average over all prices, whereas Preference at Optimal Price is the share at the optimal price only. It’s normal for the two not to match.
• Results are language model output; they show direction and magnitude. Validate high-stakes pricing decisions with real consumers. For details, see Accuracy and limitations.

Related pages

• Price Analysis (WTP)
• Choosing the right method
• Segmentation
• Exporting and downloading
• Credits