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

propelerads-semrush-dashboard

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.

ToolDetails
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 

propellerads-similarweb-website-comparison

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

popellerads-adplexity-dashboard

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

propellerads-adbeat-dashboard

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.

ToolDetails
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

propellerads-anstrex-dashboard

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. 

ToolDetails
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

propellerads-whatrunswhere-dashboard

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.

ToolDetails
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

propellerads-spyover-dashboard

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.

ToolDetails
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

propellerads-nativeadbuzz-dashboard

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.

ToolDetails
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

propellerads-advault-dashboard

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.

ToolDetails
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

AdSpy Dashboard

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. 

ToolDetails
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

propellerads-moar-dashboard

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. 

ToolDetails
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.

Author

While working as a writer and marketing consultant for the past 9 years, Tom has also developed a passion for the world of affiliate marketing. With first-hand experience and a solid background in online marketing, he has a deep understanding of the different ad formats, offers, and other elements that affect the performance of an affiliate campaign. Tom also loves backpacking around tropical countries, listening to the boom-bap sound of old school hip-hop, and playing amateur rugby with his local team.