Count an offer by how many companies say it and you get one board. Count it by how many live ads carry it and you get a different one. The second is the one your buyer sees.
You looked at what your trade offers and matched it. You matched the wrong thing.
We count every bath company advertising on Meta in America every week. On 14 September 2026 that was 216 companies running 4,389 live ads. We count each offer two ways: how many companies say it, and how many live ads carry it.
Read those two columns against each other and the board changes shape.
| The promise | Companies | Live ads | Ads per company |
|---|---|---|---|
| A free consultation or estimate | 155 | 1,225 | 8 |
| A percentage off | 43 | 1,351 | 31 |
| One-day install | 68 | 1,333 | 20 |
| A lifetime warranty | 46 | 1,064 | 23 |
| "Looking for N homeowners" | 17 | 422 | 25 |
| Financing or no interest | 42 | 333 | 8 |
| A dollar amount off | 29 | 323 | 11 |
Base: 216 companies, 4,389 live ads, week of 14 September 2026. A company counts once however many of its ads carry the offer.
155 of 216 companies promise a free estimate. That is 72% of your trade saying the same words.
Between them they put it on 1,225 ads. Eight ads each.
43 companies run a percentage off. They put it on 1,351 ads. Thirty-one each.
So a fifth of the trade runs more ads behind a discount than three quarters of the trade runs behind a free estimate.
A free estimate is the price of entry. It is not a reason to pick you, because 154 other companies offer it this week.
29 companies name a dollar amount. They run 11 ads each.
43 companies name a percentage. They run 31 ads each.
A percentage travels. One ad works for the small shower and the whole bathroom. A dollar amount has to be rebuilt for each job size.
That is most of the gap. It is a production decision, and it shows up as three times the ad volume.
This week we also read the picture on every ad in the trade. 2,463 different pictures.
615 of them show a price or a discount. Those run 18 days at the median. Everything else runs 28.
Only 6% of price ads reach 90 days. For everything else it is 18%.
A promotion has an end date, so the ad has an end date.
Say a quarter of your creative carries a number. That quarter is on a three week rebuild cycle. You pay for the rebuild whether the offer moved or not.
46 companies promise a lifetime warranty, on 1,064 ads. 68 promise a one-day install, on 1,333.
Neither has an end date. Both are claims about the work and not about this month.
They are also the two things a homeowner asks about in the kitchen, after the number.
We read the words on the ad, not the deal. A company that never writes a number may still discount at the table. Nothing here is spend or results.
What it is, is what your buyer saw this week. The method and every row are public, and we correct them in public when we get one wrong.
Write down your offer in one line. Then count how many of the 216 could write the same line.
If the answer is over a hundred, your offer is not doing any work, and your ads are paying for the difference.
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