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How to Export from the TURF Simulator

In This Article

What is TURF?

TURF stands for "Total Unduplicated Reach and Frequency", a type of analysis commonly used in product line research. The primary objective of a TURF analysis is to identify the set, or combination, of products that appeals to the widest audience. TURF assumes that the product line should be developed with the goal of providing at least one product for as many consumers as possible.

⚠️ Important: For a TURF analysis to yield quality results, all respondents must evaluate all available items. The objective of TURF is to understand how to reach the largest portion of a given audience, so an evaluation of reach must exist for every item for every individual. For this reason, TURF is not recommended when there are more items than any respondent can reasonably evaluate in a survey environment.

When to use aytm's TURF simulator

The most common use case is product-related optimization, often called Line Optimization Test or LOT. Examples include:

  • Identifying the optimal set of flavors for your ice cream line
  • Identifying the best mix of razor products for your shave brand
  • Identifying the best set of colors to offer your mobile phone or laptop in

TURF may also be used in marketing testing, such as identifying a set of marketing messages that reaches the largest part of the audience.

aytm's TURF output

The TURF Analyses category in the Export panel lets you select a specific question that holds the reach criteria and export a simulator. This is a common methodology for Line Optimization Tests (LOTs).

There are two main outputs in TURF analysis, as hinted at by the name:

(Unduplicated) Reach: Percent of the audience for which there is at least one item in the set. What defines reach must be specified in a way that ultimately gets to a binary Yes-Reached / No-Not Reached result for each item. This is commonly Top Box or Top 2 Box on a 5-point scale of purchase intent/interest, appeal, or similar metric; less commonly TURF can be used on other interest/appeal-measuring methodologies such as MaxDiff.

Frequency: Average number of items in a set that reach an individual. A common way to think about Frequency is how many items an individual would consider when making a purchase, or the number of messages that would resonate with an individual from a marketing campaign.

⚠️ Note: Frequency should not be interpreted as purchase frequency or volumetric purchase interest.

Accessing a TURF simulator

When you are working on a stats page you can export the TURF simulator for a specific eligible question.

  1. Open the Export tab.
  2. In the Export options dropdown, select TURF Analyses.
  3. Choose your question from the question dropdown.
  4. Select the method or box options that appear for that question type.
  5. Click Download file.

The delivered file is an .xlsx workbook named survey-<id>-<question>-<date>-TURF-<method>.xlsx.

💡 Tip: There is a second, one-click entry point. A MaxDiff question block's own export menu includes a Download TURF (default method) row, which skips the Export tab entirely.

turf.png 

Which questions are eligible

The question dropdown only lists questions that meet the eligibility rules for TURF:

  • Checkbox questions need at least 2 answer options.
  • Matrix-class questions (Slider, Matrix, Star/Smiley rating) need at least 2 batches and at least 3 answer options.
  • Progressive Matrix questions only qualify when set to radio-button mode.
  • MaxDiff questions must be Hierarchical Bayes (HB) MaxDiff, must have your team's TURF configuration enabled, and must have usable data.

⚠️ Note: The TURF Analyses category is not always available. It is removed from the Export options dropdown entirely when the report is in comments, image-responses, or video-responses mode, for anonymous viewers, and when the TURF feature is hidden for your team. If TURF is merely disabled rather than hidden, the category still appears but the question dropdown is replaced by a locked Select a question field with a padlock icon.

Slider, Matrix, Stars or Smiley question types

If the question type is a Slider, Progressive Matrix, or Star/Smiley rating, you will need to choose a box option before exporting the simulator.

When the question has more than 3 substantive answers, you get four radio options—two sets of Top Box and Top 2 Box. The reason there are two sets is that people set up grids differently: sometimes the options move from most positive to least positive, and sometimes from least positive to most positive. Whichever way your scale is oriented, you can pick the matching version.

When the question has exactly 3 substantive answers, only two options appear—TURF TOP 1 box (A1) and TURF TOP 1 box (A3). There are no Top 2 Box options at that length.

⚠️ Note: Answers flagged as not applicable (N/A) are excluded from the box positions. An 8-answer scale with a trailing N/A option will show TURF TOP 1 box (A7), not A8.

top 2 box turf.png 

MaxDiff HB + TURF

TURF is available for Hierarchical Bayes (HB) MaxDiff questions when your team's TURF configuration is enabled and the question has usable data.

  1. Select the chosen MaxDiff HB question from the TURF Analyses question dropdown in the Export panel.
  2. Select your preference method: Average-based PL (50% bl), Preference Likelihood x/screen, Weighted by probability, Weighted by probability 4/Screen, or First choice.
  3. Click Download file.

The "x" in Preference Likelihood x/screen reflects the number of items per set in your MaxDiff design, and falls back to 4 if that value isn't available.

⚠️ Note: If Average-based PL (50% bl) or Preference Likelihood x/screen is chosen, a slider appears that lets you control the threshold. Click and drag the slider to one of the specific stopping points: 20%, 25%, 33.3%, 50%, 60%, 70%, or 80%.

⚠️ Note: The five methods above are the default catalogue. Some teams are configured with a different set of methods, different labels, and a different default. If your panel doesn't match this list, use the method names shown on screen.

💡 Tip: If you are looking for MaxDiff utility scores rather than TURF, you can export them directly from the export menu under the question chart. 

Checkbox Virtual Questions

When the default question options don't provide what is needed, turn to the power tool that is Virtual Questions. There may be times where the scale points don't quite line up with the default options available, or—more likely—the items to be included in the TURF span multiple questions. In these cases, a checkbox virtual question can be created with an answer option defined as needed for each item to be included. Checkbox virtual questions are eligible for TURF export.

Filters and weighting

TURF exports always inherit the report's active filters. There is no option to export unfiltered results while a filter is applied—the filter string is stamped into the workbook title so you can confirm what was included.

Weighting also carries through: if the report is weighted, response weights are passed into the TURF calculation.

TURF simulator export

When you export TURF for any question, the simulator is the default tab shown. The simulator provides a clean interface for building custom combinations—whether that means always including product X regardless of performance because it's a brand standard, never introducing both product A and product B because they're too similar, or any other constraint.

💡 Tip: Cost and total available budget are not required to use the simulator.

The TURF simulator tab in the exported Excel workbook 

Functions of the TURF export

  1. The top 3 choices are highlighted in the simulator, showcasing the top 3 individual performers.
  2. Click Yes/No in the Include? column for each item to include or remove that product from the calculation.
  3. View the percentage of respondents who preferred your choices separately or combined.
  4. Click the All Combinations tab of the Excel workbook to see details on all combinations, including CombID, Reach, Frequency Among Reached, Frequency Among Total, and Number of Combinations.

The Include? column and combination results in the TURF simulator 

Considerations

If more than 19 items are being tested and available for TURF simulation, the number of possible combinations that can be explored is limited. This is due to limitations in both computing and Excel file dimensions. It is not a cut-off determined by unreasonable or not-recommended combination sizes beyond the given limit.

Combination limit message for TURF analyses with more than 19 items

⚠️ Note: If you have more than 19 items in your TURF analysis and want to look at more combinations than the simulator export provides, please reach out. Our research and professional services team can consult with you on a custom simulator.