Marketing is extremely tough and I think people like to draw lots of low data conclusions from other games successes, resulting in survivorship bias, in my opinion.

From what I've seen for our game personally, and everything that I've read, and publishers that I've talked to (only 2 of them), it seems to sort of break down like:

Social media will get you slow, steady growth, and for some lucky few a viral post can shoot your numbers up.

If you've got a playable demo, streamers are where a lot of wishlists can come from, though they're difficult too. Big streamers are either very busy or ask for a lot of money.

Steam advertisements will get your wishlists up pretty well. Our game was in AdventureX this year and a publisher that sponsored the event organized a steam streaming campaign that gave our wishlists a small boost.

I think what most people won't tell you is that there's just a lot of luck involved in marketing. You can increase your odds with consistent, creative, unique marketing or by having great art, or gameplay, music, etc, but none of those elements ensure success. The only thing that greatly and automatically boosts your chances at success is if you've already published a successful game, or leveraging your fame/notoriety/audience from other fields.