Marketing acoustic products: how manufacturers reach planners, acoustic consultancies and architects

From medium project size upwards an acoustic consultancy is almost always involved. It calculates the reverberation time to DIN 18041 or the national equivalent, sets the required absorption area and pre-selects products, using measured values per frequency band, not brochure claims. The report defines the tender, usually with a reference product and the clause "or equivalent". The architect chooses within these limits.

This sets the order of marketing: an acoustic consultancy decides on dozens of projects a year, an architect on a few. Whoever appears in the acoustician's comparison lands on the architect's desk. Whoever is visible only to the architect has to convince anew in every project. On Acoustic Index architects make up about a fifth of the users, acoustic consultancies and specialist planners the rest.

"Or equivalent" is the second lever. Equivalence has to be proven with measured values in the same build-up. A product whose αw, absorption class and frequency curve are public and documented can be submitted as equivalent. A product without evidence cannot, however good it is.

For absorbers the reverberation-room test report to ISO 354 is the currency: with mounting type (type A directly on the substrate, type E with a defined cavity), one-third-octave values from 100 to 5,000 Hz, αw and absorption class to ISO 11654, laboratory and report number. Object absorbers such as baffles or screens need the equivalent absorption area Aobj per piece, building components the sound reduction index Rw to ISO 10140.

Add the fire class to EN 13501-1, build-up depth, weight and, where required, EPD and BIM object. Planners check the origin of a value: accredited laboratory, third-party lab, material test or datasheet. On Acoustic Index this tier is printed next to every value; datasheet values are shown in grey and do not count towards the absorption class. A datasheet that mirrors a test report is fine. A datasheet without one is an argument for the competitor who has one.

Manufacturers without a measurement can commission one: reverberation-room measurement to ISO 354 through the measurement service, EUR 590 per measurement including mounting and test protocol, samples accepted from all over Europe, followed by a listing with the data.

Since 2026 planners ask ChatGPT, Copilot and Perplexity for products with specific values: "class A ceiling raft with test report", "wood acoustic panel αw 0.8". The assistants cite pages where measured values stand as text and as structured data, not PDFs and not brochure sentences. On Acoustic Index every product page carries its measurements as a schema.org Dataset with laboratory, report number and band values, which is why they get cited.

The figures, as of September 2026: Microsoft counts 2,400 citations of Acoustic Index in Copilot within three months, mostly for specific products and brands. Four out of five visitors who arrive via an AI answer land directly on a product page, and they click the link to the manufacturer almost three times as often as the average visitor.

For manufacturers this means: a product with documented measured values on a citable page gets recommended by assistants whether or not the planner knows the database. A product whose values exist only in a catalogue PDF does not appear in these answers.

The listing consists of the structured capture of measurement data from test reports, spreadsheets or datasheets by Acoustic Index, the manufacturer profile with reference projects, visibility in search, comparison, export and AI answers in four languages, and statistics on which products planners view and compare. Process, requirements and contacts are on the page for manufacturers.