I avoid Craigslist like the plague! However, I live in an area that is almost totally devoid of escorts (way out in the desert) and don't get to San Diego (a two-hour drive away) as often as I used to, so the lovely ladies of TER aren't always available to me. There are a few ladies who were born in the area and make the occasional trip back home, and there are also the occasional ladies passing through (but they seem rarer and rarer), and Backpage, where they post, has been barren for weeks. It is possible to cross the border into Mexico and go to the ficha bars, but that takes half a day, and I often can't get that much private time away from home without my SO noticing. In desperation, I have clicked a CL ad once or twice, but after the first email response, they all want me to be verified at Craigslist Friend Finder with my credit card info. I am leery of doing this, as I am about most things CL related. (Most of the posts claiming to be local are not, some are setups for scams and phishing. A number of the ads supposedly posted by women are actually posted by men, etc) I was nervous enough about giving real info at an agency that I trust and have used many times, but the Internet? Has anyone had their identity stolen, or been ripped off financially at CLFF? How safe (or should I say Unsafe) is Craigslist Friend Finder?
Any legitimate escort will use one of the legitimate verification sites (TER, P411, ....). If you give your CC info to CL you might as well just post it on a public site.
Backpage added something - I think they added you have to provide a social media profile link to post an ad so now almost every backpage is barren unless it's a big city 
Ha, where I live (also an escort desert, though not nearly as bad as the OP's neck of the woods), almost all the same girls are still posting, most with either stolen or made-up social media links. Some have created dummy SM accounts with a few photos, and there are even a few who have, astonishingly enough, posted their *real life* accounts.
What I did notice is that BP got rid of the "sort by date" option in the "women seeking men" section. That used to show you more posts than the "top" sort -- so "top" must have some kind of filter that weeds out certain posts, though I'm not sure of the criteria. Maybe suspected scams, girls with some complaints lodged against them? Anyway once they changed that, some providers disappeared, never to return.
I haven't posted to BP in a while, but I believe I can answer your question.
BP makes it's money on ''Top" posts.
Providers pay to recycle their ad to the top of the page, as generally it is believed that male clients do not have the attention span to scan more than the first 2-3 posts.
I used to pay approximately $60 to keep my ads at the top.
Hope this helps!
IME, I haven’t really found that to be true. I use to spend an obscene amount of cash to keep my ad st the top, but at some point late spring, I decided to just try bumping it once or twice a day. So far it’s worked pretty well. I’m also saving, on average, $250-300 a week and still getting the same call volume.
And this is not a big city. The social media thing didn't make a dent in number of BP advertisers. Same girls still advertising and using phony, stolen, or blank social media links as another reply above said.
San Diego more frequently. Maybe it is deep sea fishing, golf, or even go to Padre baseball games or attend events at colleges in the SD area.
If the escort scene is that barren, maybe check out sugar babys. Try Seeking Arrangements and see what pops up, so to speak.
For more info on the whole SD/SB scene check out The Erotic Highway Board.
Identies get stolen from many places. There is no guarantee, even with your bank. Look at what happened it Equifax. Yours and mine may have been stolen already.
Menace of the Internet era.