For reference, I successfully ran 2 Kickstarter campaigns in the past and both times I did it, I had basically no audience or any idea what I was doing.

I don't think you can blame KS for your campaign flopping. That would be like opening up a store on your own, and then getting mad at the person who rented you the building because you're not selling anything. All they did was provide you the location to sell goods, it's on you to bring people in and convert sales.

Kickstarter is basically accepting money as a service with some unique twists. They never claim to be a marketing agency that will promote your campaign for you.

Sure, if your campaign gets popular you'll probably trend for that category on their listings page, but if you're depending on random people browsing KS to back your campaign then you're just setting yourself up for failure.

The long story short is, running a KS campaign is like running a sales campaign. You really need to plan a ton ahead of time, and ideally have an audience before you start the campaign, and if you don't have an audience, you need to find outlets to find people who are likely well aligned with what you're trying to raise funds for.

In other words, there's no shortcuts or guarantees when it comes to sales.