As far as I remember, there were mostly not big projects who made promotional campaigns here if we talk about exchanges and services. There were more different crypto projects with own token/coin, including some games, etc.
I think you're right, most of the times the big projects choose a platform which has many active users and in past Altcoinstalks used to be not so active, and that's why most of the services weren't interested in running their promotional campaigns on this platform.
But, now things are different, many of the exchanges and other big projects know that the forum is the 2nd most active crypto forum on the internet after Bitcointalk and it could be a helpful forum for them to gain more users on their platforms.
That's why I believe that in future we may see big projects running their promotion campaigns on this forum. I believe the biggest projects are already running their signature campaigns on this forum, those are the mixers as they were paying quite good amounts to the users on Bitcointalk before they were banned on that forum.