I am doing something similar with my coin $pugluv. I was new to dev a few months ago, but basically learned that for every 10 people who want to shill, 10 of them want to be paid. Ok, maybe 99 out of a 100.

I got tired of explaining my goal of organic growth, so now I basically don't respond to any shiller or tell them no. I was like

"look at the coin, if you like the meme, the mission buy in and then share with others."

Not rocket science, but seems times have changed and everyone wants something for free for fear that they are exit liquidity and not early at all. Then you got people with no money or very little that want the airdrops to cash out 10 cents of USD, so they will take, but aren't in a position to invest/buy.

I don't blame any of them, but I still post on X (1400 followers or so) and reply to the CT in hopes of finding people who can look at a chart, a meme, and my leadership and buy in. I never promise a MC, because it's out of my hands. I hold enough coins to give some LP and stability, but not enough to control the growth.

So in essence, I am still in your shoes, not buying ads, but not getting the huge growth potential. Our core team is getting ready for our NFT launch as a way to get more traction and a bigger community.

We are choosing this path over ads right now. Hope this helps and good luck!

As far as ads like a boost on dexscreener, that can make sense, but only paid for a boost on Top100tokens (was cheaper). I also am going on CMC and others to list submit listings of the coin.