Since its early days, marketing has been an extremely competitive space. It’s no surprise that marketers face countless challenges and fierce rivals when trying to set up any type of advertising campaign.
Gaining a competitive advantage is extremely important, and modern competitor research tools can help you do that. What is even more, digital marketing allows a new level of ethical competitor surveillance in the form of research tools.
Let’s take a look at how competitor research can help you enhance your marketing campaign and discuss 9 outstanding spy tools to analyze their campaigns.
What Exactly are Competitor Research Tools?
The term “competitive research” can be defined as any strategy that allows you to identify and analyze your competitor’s weaknesses and strengths.
In digital marketing, competitor research tools, also known as spy tools, can help surveil your rivals’ campaigns. You can gain access to real-time and historical data that helps optimize the areas that are most valuable to your industry.
Keep in mind that there are hundreds of marketing platforms and there are spy tools to help you surveil the vast majority of these networks. And, because spy tools have gained so much traction, competitive research is not only left to big corporations anymore.
Today, local and international companies of all sizes use competitor research tools to hone in on their weaknesses and work on these areas of improvement.
Using Competitor Research Tools to Improve Your Campaigns
There are competitor research tools available for most marketing platforms, industries, and budgets. Below, we have included a list of the spy tools we believe can provide the information you need to build a superb campaign.
1. SEMrush – Starting at $119.95/mo
Image Source: SEMrush Dashboard
Why is SEMrush Popular? SEMrush is ranked as one of the best competitor research tools out there. It’s not only a spy tool, but a comprehensive suite of instruments that help you build a better campaign. You can filter competitors by country and see how much traffic they get through paid ads, the keywords they’re using, the publishers where their ads are shown, and much more.
| Tool | Details |
| Type of Ad Surveillance | • Text • Display |
| Supported Channels | • Mobile • Desktop • API |
| Additional Tracking Features | • Image of competitor ads • Landing pages • List of publishers • Link Building • Rank Tracking • Backlink audit and analytics • Organic & paid traffic data • Referral Traffic • Social media toolkit • PPC Keyword • Research • Content Marketing, Optimization, & Analytics • Competitive Research, SEO Analysis, & PR Monitoring |
2. SimilarWeb – $ 249/mo
Source Image: SimilarWeb
Why is SimilarWeb Popular? This analytics tool allows you from the start to choose between 5 different kinds of accounts. However, between Digital Research and Marketing, there’s already a big list of services and information you can gain about your main competitors.
They give you access to audiences, publishers, referrals, budgets and all the other statistics that you might need, to boost your campaigns.
| Tool | • Details |
| Type of Ad Surveillance | • Text • Display • Product Listing Ads (PLAs) • Rich media |
| Supported Channels | • Mobile • Desktop • API |
| Additional Tracking Features | • Image of competitor ads • Landing pages • Referral Traffic Tracking • Audience Interests • Related Mobile Apps • Device targeting • Sneak-peeks & Risk Management •from Competitors’ Marketing Strategies • TrafficMeter Browser Extension |
3. AdPlexity – $199/mo / channel
Why is AdPlexity Popular? AdPlexity provides a very reliable option if you’re looking for innovation and cross-channel surveillance. This platform allows you to filter out competitors by different categories and allows you to see the landing page redirection chain being used on each individual ad.
| Tool | • Details |
| Type of Ad Surveillance | • Text • Display • Rich media |
| Supported Channels | • Mobile • Desktop • API • Native • Push • eCommerce |
| Additional Tracking Features | • Filter by advertisers, publishers, and affiliate networks • Landing Page Download (image, css, java script, etc.) • Ad trend • Device targeting • Traffic Sources used • Outgoing URLs |
4. Adbeat – $249/mo
Why is Adbeat Popular? Adbeat is a robust platform with huge amounts of data and insights, but it’s still easy to use. This spy tool supports more than 25 different countries and can collect information from 4 different types of devices (Android, Android Tablet, iPhone, iPad) as well.
| Tool | Details |
| Type of Ad Surveillance | • Text • Display • Rich media • Direct Buys • Pre-roll |
| Supported Channels | • Mobile • Desktop |
| Additional Tracking Features | • More than 120 supported networks • Reveals estimated ad spend, buying strategies, and landing pages • Creates reports in a variety of formats • Detailed publisher data • Campaigns comparison tool |
5. Anstrex – $69.99/mo
Why is Anstrex Popular? Anstrex boasts of more than 36 ad networks from around the world. This spy tool is designed to help you snoop on your competitor’s secrets while allowing you to reduce your marketing spend and drive more traffic.
| Tool | Details |
| Type of Ad Surveillance | • Text • Display • Rich media |
| Supported Channels | • Mobile • Desktop • Native • Push & In-Page Push • Dropship (Beta Version) |
| Additional Tracking Features | • SimilarWeb and Alexa integration • Enhanced search function • Choose geographical location • Ads notifications • Reliable and knowledgeable community |
6. WhatRunsWhere – $299/Month
Why is WhatRunsWhere Popular? WhatRunsWhere may be on the more expensive side, but this reliable spy tool collects and renders data around the clock. This means you’ll be getting the most recent and accurate data every time you make adjustments to your campaigns, among other awesome features.
| Tool | Details |
| Type of Ad Surveillance | • Display • Text |
| Supported Channels | • Mobile • Desktop • Native |
| Additional Tracking Features | • More than 500 networks and 60 million ads • Filter by top performing ads • Select specific date range or keywords • Compare Advertisers • Filter by Affiliate Links Only |
7. SpyOver -$149/mo
Why is SpyOver Popular? SpyOver gives you access to extensive competitor statistics in the form of easy-to-understand diagrams and other visual means. At the same time, you can sort ads based on different categories, translate text ads into English, and see which ads actually yield results.
| Tool | Details |
| Type of Ad Surveillance | • Text • Display |
| Supported Channels | • Desktop • Mobile • Native |
| Additional Tracking Features | • 14 ad networks scattered across 115 countries • Search by: ◦ Publisher ◦ Keyword ◦ Brand ◦ Chain of redirects ◦ Landing text ◦ Outgoing links • Text translation • Ad download (with mass download option) • Show which ads led to a certain landing-page |
8. Native Ad Buzz – Starting at $47/mo
Why is Native Ad Buzz Popular? NativeAdBuzz, often shortened as NAB, is a great all-around spy tool that can help you reverse engineer winning campaigns. At the same time, because it provides complete information, you’ll probably reduce the time you spend surveilling the competition while still improving your performance.
| Tool | Details |
| Type of Ad Surveillance | • Text • Display |
| Supported Channels | • Native • Desktop • Mobile |
| Additional Tracking Features | • A large community of internet marketers • Ads saving feature • Filter ads by language, publisher, landing page, and much more |
9. Advault – Starting at $97/mo
Image by AffiliateNinjaClub
Why is Advault Popular? Identifying and mimicking marketing campaigns can be extremely tough. Advault is a platform that lets you find campaigns based on their popularity. At the same time, Advault implements a series of dedicated metrics and features that allow you to discover new trends in your industry.
| Tool | Details |
| Type of Ad Surveillance | • Text • Display |
| Supported Channels | • Mobile • Desktop • Native |
| Additional Tracking Features | • Favorite ads gallery • Full networks statistics • Chat support available • 13 Ad Networks • 20 Countries • $2,300 in ad credits • Possibility to contact every advertiser from their database |
10. AdSpy – $149/mo
Why is AdSpy Popular? This tool built by actual affiliates, allows you to interact with a large database of Facebook and Instagram ads. Moreover, they allow you to search by affiliate network, offer ID, number of likes, comments and even landing page technologies. But, although they allow you to browse through vast amounts of data, their friendly interface makes it really easy.
| Tool | Details |
| Type of Ad Surveillance | • Text • Display |
| Supported Channels | • Mobile • Desktop |
| Additional Tracking Features | • Cloaked ads featured • Accurate Demographics • 213 Countries • Enhanced Basic Search (including comment search) |
11. Moat – Free service
Why is Moat Popular? This free tool allows you to check your ad performance and that of your main competitors. You can even set up creative alerts to come by email once any of the brands you’re following is launching new creatives. The platform also automatically displays the main competitors of the brand you’re searching for.
| Tool | Details |
| Type of Ad Surveillance | • Text • Display • Rich Media |
| Supported Channels | • Desktop |
| Additional Tracking Features | • Email alert • Browser Extension displaying ad servers, DSPs, networks, exchanges and measurement platforms for each ad impression |
Did we miss something? Share with us your favorite spy tool in the comment section below!
Editor’s Note: Originally published in June 2018, this article was updated for accuracy reasons.
