That's interesting. I had zero advertising budget since I joined Steemit, mainly because I am used to grow audiences organically. On my blog at http://dragosroua.com I still have 1000 unique users per day, without a dime spent and without writing for more than a year. It's all google organic traffic.
Steemit, because of its inner economics (7 days payout window, dead links potential because of data not being edited after 30 days, etc) is a completely different beast, but I chose not to spend on advertising and use my technical skills to grow my audience, hence the witness node.