Growing sales
Growing sales as a manufacturer of acoustic products: where projects are lost
Last updated:
Manufacturers of acoustic products grow revenue through a higher hit rate in the specification, not through more reach. The product choice is prepared in the acoustic consultant's report, before the tender is written. A product with documented measured values is carried there as the lead product or as an accepted equivalent. A product with brochure values is never assessed at all. This page sets out the seven points at which projects are lost and the order in which fixing them pays off.
Why more reach does not move revenue
The usual answer to flat revenue is more visibility, more enquiries, more support for dealers and interior designers. For acoustic products that falls short, because from mid-sized projects upwards the product choice is not made there. An acoustic consultancy calculates reverberation time to DIN 18041, sets the required absorption area and preselects products, working from measured values per frequency band. The report defines the tender. The architect chooses within those constraints.
Reach with architects therefore sits downstream. It helps when the product is admissible in the specification anyway, and it does not help when it is not. The leverage sits one step earlier: an acoustic consultancy decides on dozens of projects a year, an individual architect on few. On Acoustic Index, architects account for around a fifth of users; acoustic consultancies and specialist planners make up the rest.
That leads to an uncomfortable diagnosis. When revenue is flat although the products are good and the brand is known, the cause is usually not the marketing but the evidence. Which is the good news: evidence is a solvable problem with known costs.
The hit rate in tenders is the lever
Public and larger private tenders must be product neutral. In practice the bill of quantities names a lead product and adds “or equivalent”. That means every project offers two slots: the lead product slot, awarded in the report, and the accepted alternative slot, awarded during the bidding phase.
The second slot is the underrated one. It costs no relationship building, only evidence: equivalence has to be documented with measured values in the same mounting, with the frequency curve, not merely with the absorption class. A product with a publicly accessible test report can be submitted in every live project that names a comparable lead product. A product without that report can be submitted in none.
What drives revenue is therefore not the number of contacts but the share of tenders in which your product is admissible at all. That share can be raised deliberately, and the levers for it are finite and nameable.
The seven points at which projects are lost
The causes appear in the order in which they take effect inside a project: first the evidence, then how it is presented, then the channels. The column “How you notice” matters more than it looks, because most of these losses never arrive as a rejection. The product simply never comes up.
| Point | What happens in the project | How you notice | What helps |
|---|---|---|---|
| No ISO 354 test report | The product cannot be specified. The planner cannot calculate absorption area with it and takes a product they can calculate with. | Enquiries arrive through dealers, never through an acoustic consultancy. | Commission a reverberation room measurement, EUR 590 per measurement. |
| Values only inside a catalogue PDF | The numbers exist but are neither comparable nor machine readable. The product appears neither in the planner's comparison nor in AI answers. | Planners request data sheets by email instead of comparing themselves. | Publish measured values as structured data per frequency band. |
| Only one mounting type measured | Measured as type A directly on the surface, specified as suspended with a plenum. The values do not apply and the product drops out. | Commitments collapse late, shortly before the award. | Second measurement in the specified mounting, usually type E. |
| Object absorbers without Aobj | Baffles, ceiling rafts and screens need the equivalent absorption area per unit. Without Aobj the planner cannot determine quantities. | The product reaches quotes but rarely bills of quantities. | State Aobj per unit, not only the surface absorption coefficient. |
| No proof of equivalence | The tender names a lead product with the addition “or equivalent”. Without a documented frequency curve in the same mounting the door stays shut. | Competitors hold the lead product slot and you never appear as the alternative. | Make the test report with mounting type and third-octave values publicly accessible. |
| Absent from planning and tendering software | What is missing from the planner's tool is missing from the bill of quantities. Selection happens inside the software, not in a catalogue. | Good conversations at trade fairs, no mention in the tenders that follow. | Separate presence in measurement database, BIM library and specification texts, and cover each one. |
| Absent from AI assistant answers | Planners ask ChatGPT, Copilot and Perplexity for products with specific values. Cited are pages carrying measured values as text and structured data, not PDFs. | Your own name is missing when you ask the assistants about your own product category. | Keep products on a citable page carrying schema.org data. |
Compiled from preparing manufacturer data for Acoustic Index. The order is the order of remedy: a product without a test report benefits from no channel.
The order in which fixing this pays off
The steps build on one another. Each later step amplifies the earlier ones, and none of them replaces one.
Measure what is actually specified
Reverberation room measurement to ISO 354 for the products carrying the largest share of projects, in the mounting that is genuinely specified. Through the measurement service EUR 590 per measurement including mounting and test report, less for several measurements, samples accepted from all over Europe.
Declare completely
Third-octave values from 100 to 5,000 Hz, mounting type, αw and absorption class to ISO 11654, laboratory and report number. For object absorbers Aobj per unit, for building elements Rw to ISO 10140. Plus reaction to fire to EN 13501-1, construction depth and weight.
Publish structured data instead of sending it on request
Values that only go out after an email do not exist in the planner's comparison, and certainly not within a tender deadline. Publicly and machine readable values are the precondition for being submitted as an equivalent.
Be present where planning happens
Measurement database for the preselection in the consultancy, BIM library for the object inside planning software, specification texts for the bill of quantities. The three channels do not replace one another; they cover different steps of the same chain.
Measure the effect instead of estimating it
Progress shows in the products planners view, compare and export, and in the clicks through to the manufacturer. That sits closer to the project than any reach figure and shows early which products need evidence.
The channel that arrived in 2026
Planners now ask assistants for specific values, for instance a class A ceiling raft with a test report or a wooden panel with αw 0.8. Assistants cite what they can read. They cannot cite a catalogue PDF; they can cite a product page carrying measured values as text and as a schema.org dataset.
The order of magnitude, as of September 2026: Microsoft counts 2,400 citations for Acoustic Index in Copilot within three months, mostly for specific products and brands. Four out of five visitors arriving from an AI answer land directly on a product page, and they click through to the manufacturer almost three times as often as the average visitor. For a manufacturer this is a channel without waste: whoever arrives here is already looking for a product with particular values.
Make products specifiable
Send test reports, spreadsheets or data sheets. Acoustic Index structures the data, states the provenance of every value and makes it available to planners in search, comparison, export and AI answers. Where a measurement is missing, it runs through the measurement service.
Frequently asked questions
How can I grow sales as a manufacturer of acoustic products?
By raising the share of tenders in which your product is admissible at all. That requires every revenue-relevant product to have an ISO 354 test report in the mounting that is genuinely specified, complete values including αw, absorption class and, for object absorbers, Aobj, and those values have to be public and comparable. Only then do additional channels such as BIM libraries, specification texts and AI answers contribute to revenue.
Why does more visibility with architects not automatically mean more revenue?
Because from mid-sized projects upwards the product choice is prepared in the acoustic consultant's report before the architect decides. The report works from measured frequency curves and defines the tender, usually with a lead product and the addition “or equivalent”. Visibility with architects helps within those constraints and does not replace them. A product without measurement data is not specifiable however visible it is.
What does it cost to make a product specifiable?
The foundation is a reverberation room measurement to ISO 354. Through the Acoustic Index measurement service it costs EUR 590 per measurement including mounting and test report, less for several measurements, and samples are accepted from all over Europe. Manufacturers who already hold test reports need no new measurement, only the complete and public preparation of the values they have.
How do I know my product is dropping out of tenders?
From three patterns: enquiries arrive almost only through dealers and hardly ever through acoustic consultancies; planners request data sheets by email instead of comparing themselves; and commitments collapse late, shortly before the award, usually because the measurement exists in a different mounting than the one specified. These losses never arrive as a rejection, because the product was never in the assessment.
How many projects depend on a single acoustic consultancy?
An acoustic consultancy accompanies dozens of projects a year, an individual architect considerably fewer. That makes the preselection inside the consultancy the point of greatest leverage: appearing in the comparison there puts you into many bills of quantities at once. Being visible only to architects means convincing again in every single project.
Is this worth it for a small manufacturer with few products?
Especially then, because the effort scales with the number of products and the benefit does not. A small manufacturer with three fully documented products is admissible in more tenders than a large one with thirty products and no test reports. The sensible route is to start with the two or three products carrying the largest share of projects, and to measure them in the mounting that is actually specified.
Sources
- DIN 18041:2016, Acoustic quality in rooms. Requirements, recommendations and instructions for planning.
- ISO 354:2003, Acoustics. Measurement of sound absorption in a reverberation room. ISO 11654:1997, Sound absorbers for use in buildings, rating of sound absorption.
- ISO 10140, Acoustics. Laboratory measurement of sound insulation of building elements. EN 13501-1, fire classification of construction products.
- German VOB/A section 7 (2), product-neutral specification with the addition “or equivalent”.
- Bing Webmaster Tools, AI Performance for acousticindex.com, June to September 2026: 2,400 citations in Microsoft Copilot and partners.
- Acoustic Index, usage analysis May to September 2026: share of sessions from AI answers and clicks through to manufacturers.