How can I use custom individual preferences coefficients in my analysis?


Custom individual Hierarchical Bayes (HB) coefficients can be uploaded in conjoint experiments. Here’s what you need to know:

Supported Experiment Types

Custom coefficients can be used in:

  • Generic Conjoint (GC)
  • Product Variant Selector (PVS) with HB
  • Claims Test (CT) with HB
  • Brand-Specific Conjoint (BSC)
  • MaxDiff (MD)
  • BPTO with the linear price setting

Note: This feature is not available for BPTO with cumulative price or experiments without HB.

How to Upload Custom Coefficients

  1. Download the default coefficients
  2. Prepare your CSV file:
    • Keep only the “Individual preferences” tab
    • Remove header rows
    • Remove “Notes” and “Weight” columns
    • Rename level columns to keep only level numbers (e.g., “B2: Kea Lager” → “B2”)
    • Ensure decimal points (not commas) are used for numbers
  3. Make your desired changes
  4. Go to Advanced settingsAnalytics Options
  5. Click Upload .csv file and follow the wizard

Important Considerations

  • Values must be within the range [-1000, 1000]
  • All participant IDs and coefficients must be present
  • The system will validate your file before accepting it
  • Only one set of custom coefficients can be active at a time
  • Custom coefficients become invalid if:
    • The participant set changes
    • HB is disabled (for Claims or PVS)
    • The file becomes unreadable

Limitations

  • Confidence intervals in the simulator become unavailable when using custom coefficients
  • When duplicating an experiment without respondents, custom coefficients will not be copied

If you need assistance with custom coefficients, please contact Conjointly support for help.