If your product converts well, your ads will usually work in your favor. Although, designing a good ad creative is like building a product: it needs a clear value and a strong CTA to drive clicks.
Meta ads, for example, has been my top source of users for one of my apps[1].
[1] Unwind - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/unwind-daily-breathwork/id1470...
Both are hard for folks who enjoy building. If you want to make money you have to grow in the opposite direction and grind.
- ASA was awesome in the beginning for me, but a competitor came out and way outbid me. So I don't use them currently. - Meta will take time to figure out, but once it did - it has been critical for me. For example, at the start I had my targeting age around 20-60 year old, something like that. But I found out that 20-25 year olds aren't really serious basketball coaches yet, and the algo serves ads to them like crazy because they are super cheap. Basically, low intent users. Changing my age range to 25+ was like a magic switch that made me ads better overnight. Stuff like that is why you need a few months to figure it out, and you can do that without spending a toooon of money, but you do need to spend some money. Hope that helps.