Four companies swap the place and run the same line again. The oldest version has been live 242 days. Here is why it keeps working, and what a franchise unit is allowed to copy.
You write a new ad every month. Four companies in your trade run the same sentence. The oldest live copy has been up 242 days.
We count the bath companies we track on Meta, every month. On 14 September 2026 that was 216 companies running at least 4,389 live ads. We also group the opening lines, so a line that runs in forty towns counts as one line.
The biggest group is this one.
"We're looking for 150 homeowners in JEFFERSON COUNTY for a 1-DAY Tub or Shower Transformation!"
Swap the place. Run it again.
125 versions. 159 live ads. Four companies. The oldest has been up 242 days. Most of the 125 are counties; ten are cities or states.
One of the four also runs a "Tub to Shower" wording in 16 places, 8 of them new, its oldest copy 222 days old.
It does three things at once, and each is doing work.
It names the homeowner's county, so it reads like news and not like an ad. It puts a number on the offer, so it sounds finite. And it asks them to be one of a group, not a customer.
17 companies in the trade run some form of "looking for N homeowners". Between them, 422 live ads.
You do not have to like it. Its oldest copy has been up eight months, in a trade where half the live ads are 17 days old or less.
Half the trade runs under a franchise system, and it shows in the volume.
| 14 September 2026 | Pages | Live ads | Median per page |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under a franchise system | 111 | 1,016 | 6 |
| Not a franchise | 113 | 3,373 | 18 |
Base: 224 pages, 216 companies, the live ads we could read on 14 September 2026.
Almost the same number of pages. Three times the ads on one side.
The biggest system runs 84 pages and 560 ads between them. Its busiest location runs 18. On the other side of the table, the busiest independent page showed us 350 live ads, as many as our read takes.
That gap is not size. It is what the package ships with, and how much of it a unit may change.
If you are independent, you can put the county in the ad today, without asking anyone.
If you run a unit, ask your next system call one specific question. Who makes the version with my county on it?
The trick is not the sentence. It is that somebody made one idea in 125 places.
We group lines after stripping case, punctuation and emoji, with the place and the numbers blanked. Two lines that differ by a comma count as one. Nothing here is spend or results, and a line that runs long is not proof of a sold job.
What it is proof of is a choice. Four companies made the same sentence in 125 places.
Take the ad that worked best for you last quarter. Count how many versions of it you ran.
If the answer is one, you have a winner you never used.
You hear the price on our second call, before you sign anything. Your ad account and every lead stay yours.
What comes with it depends on where you start, with ads running or with none. You get it on one page before you sign anything. The longer answers.
Lovro Lucic, on US hours from Zagreb. You deal with me, not a team. Your page, your number and your calendar stay in your time zone. Call me at +1 (866) 989-4568, answered by me 8 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Eastern, or pick a time on the calendar.