Making a query to the DB using same parameters of loop

To get the number of posts you can do it easily without a second query with

$adsQuery->post_count;

But if there’s some reason (I’d love to know the context!) I can’t grasp that the same query has to be run twice and to the database directly- to answer your question as to why it’s not working:

Has $table_name been defined? Are you using {$wpdb->prefix}_posts or {$wpdb->posts} in $table_name?
You have no sql string value quotes around $taxQuery or $metaValue values, so that’ll break the query, unless they integers
Has $wpdb has been globally declared?
Are you using $wpdb->print_error() to show the issue?
If you echo’ed the string query instead of running it, do it look like you expect? whats missing? if you paste it in phpmyAdmin/sqlworkbench does it give you any indication of the problem?
do you have any errors in your servers errors logs? mysql error logs?

I would suggest something like the following

<?php
global $wpdb;

$query = "
    SELECT COUNT(ID) 
    FROM   {$wpdb->posts}
    WHERE  post_type="ads" 
           AND post_status="publish" 
           AND tax_query = \"%s\"
           AND meta_query = \"%s\"";

// show query
// echo "<pre>{$query}</pre>";

$count = $wpdb->get_var( $wpdb->prepare( 
    $query, 
    $taxQuery,
    $metaValue
));



echo "<pre>";
if($wpdb->last_error !== '') {
   echo "🔥 ERROR: ";
   $wpdb->print_error();
} else {
   echo "Count: {$count}";
}
echo "</pre>";

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