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SpyFu has proven to be an invaluable tool for conducting competitor research and analysis in the advertising industry. Users have praised …
Starting at $39 per month
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What is SpyFu?
SpyFu is the eponymous SEO and PPC research platform from the company in Scottsdale, Arizona focused on "spying" on competitors, or basically using their behaviors to refine your own through keyword and content analysis, and backlink poaching. This positional search…
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Popular Features
- Competitive analysis (50)9.191%
- SERP ranking tracking (43)8.181%
- Keyword analysis (51)6.969%
- Backlink management (39)5.959%
Reviewer Pros & Cons
Pricing
Basic
$39
Cloud
per month
Professional
$79
Cloud
per month
Team
$299
Cloud
per month
Entry-level set up fee?
- No setup fee
Offerings
- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Product Demos
Using Spyfu to Find Leads for a B2B Google Ads or SEO Agency - SpyFu Review and Demo For B2B Leads
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Jeff Demo 07 - Using SpyFu for Local SEO YouTube
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SpyFu Review Video Demo - Excellent or Scam?
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Domain Ad History Demo, Part 2 | SpyFu Domain Ad History
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Domain Ad History Demo, Part 1 | SpyFu Domain Ad History
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Spyfu Review: Pros, Cons, and Alternatives (+ Demo)
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What is SpyFu?
SpyFu Video
SpyFu Demo
SpyFu Competitors
SpyFu Technical Details
| Deployment Types | Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems | Unspecified |
| Mobile Application | No |
Frequently Asked Questions
SpyFu is the eponymous SEO and PPC research platform from the company in Scottsdale, Arizona focused on "spying" on competitors, or basically using their behaviors to refine your own through keyword and content analysis, and backlink poaching. This positional search engine optimization and paid listings management platform touts the ability to lower costs and raise rankings via a Kombat-oriented approach... basically a cute way of saying "it makes comparisons" of how well your site does in niche keyword areas vis-a-vis rival actors in the same or contiguous marketing space.
Published pricing starts at $79 per month with the Basic plan, for Google, Yahoo & Bing research, 6 years of historical access, unlimited access to SpyFu's tools, but somewhat limited access to leads and domain contacts keyword rank tracking. The $139 Professional plan gives full access to UK data and doubles the rank tracking of keywords from 400 to 800, and provides custom branded (white label) reports and API access. the $999 Agency plan gives team access (10 user logins) and unlimited tracking and reporting capabilities.
Moz Pro and RavenTools are common alternatives for SpyFu.
Reviewers rate Competitive analysis highest, with a score of 9.1.
The most common users of SpyFu are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees).
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(132)
Community Insights
TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!
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SpyFu has proven to be an invaluable tool for conducting competitor research and analysis in the advertising industry. Users have praised its ability to provide strong directional insights for evaluating search advertisers, allowing them to understand their potential clients' past PPC efforts and identify opportunities for new campaigns. With its keyword research capabilities, users have been able to optimize their AdWords campaigns and allocate budgets effectively, ensuring that they are targeting the right keywords and avoiding spending on ineffective ad campaigns. SpyFu's SEO insights have also been highly beneficial for users, enabling them to assess the effectiveness of their SEO efforts and identify areas for improvement. By analyzing competitors' backlinks, users have been able to enhance their own backlink profiles, improving their website's authority in search engines.
The software has matured over time and added new elements, making it an integral part of users' arsenal for competitor research and baseline SEO analysis. Users have particularly praised SpyFu's ability to deliver a domain's ad history, which has helped them remain competitive in paid search. By identifying profitable keywords and uncovering low-hanging fruit through keyword tracking and competitor analysis features, users have been able to drive successful SEO campaigns. SpyFu's impact on search marketing ventures cannot be overstated, as it provides users with a powerful edge over their competitors in the search engine space.
In addition, SpyFu has become widely utilized for SEM and SEO business intelligence. Its comprehensive insights into competitors' monthly spending, ad copy, keywords, and SEO rankings allow users to gain valuable information for strategic decision-making. The tool has proven effective in pivoting campaign strategies quickly based on the insights provided by SpyFu. Users have found it instrumental in competitor analysis and strategizing marketing programs, helping them understand the competition landscape and assess viability within given budgets.
Furthermore, SpyFu has been used for various purposes such as analyzing potential keywords, conducting SEO data research, gaining insights into how search engines perceive websites, establishing baselines, conducting competitive analysis, and performing marketing and brand audits. Its advanced competitive keyword research capabilities have allowed users to collect thousands of keywords for themselves and their competitors, providing a wealth of data for analysis and optimization. SpyFu's auto-generated SEO reports have also been vital to the success of SEO efforts, providing users with comprehensive insights into core keywords and identifying new opportunities or challenges. Additionally, the estimation of competitors' monthly AdWords spending by SpyFu has provided valuable information in highly competitive fields.
With its interface and growing catalog of advantages, SpyFu has met users' needs
Intuitive User Interface: Many users have praised SpyFu for its highly intuitive and easy-to-navigate user interface. They appreciate the straightforward design and layout, which allows them to quickly access the information they need. This user-friendly interface has been mentioned by several reviewers, making it accessible to employees of all experience levels and easy for anyone to use and navigate.
Competitor Analysis: The ability to analyze competitors' advertising strategies and tactics is highly valued by users. Several reviewers have expressed their appreciation for being able to see what advertising has been done in the past. This feature allows them to gain insights into their competition's strategies, stay informed about their industry, and make data-driven decisions for their own campaigns.
Keyword Insights: Users find the keyword tool within SpyFu to be a great resource for understanding their website's performance as well as comparing it to their competitors'. Many reviewers have highlighted how this tool helps them identify top-performing keywords and compare them against their competitors' keywords. By optimizing SEO strategies based on these insights, users are able to stay ahead of the competition in search engine rankings.
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Lack of Clarity in Explanations: Some users have found that certain aspects of SpyFu are not well explained, leading to confusion and difficulty in understanding their purpose.
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Irrelevant Keywords: Several reviewers have mentioned that the keywords provided by SpyFu can be irrelevant to the selected business, which compromises the accuracy of the data.
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Graphs Difficult to Work With: The graphs in SpyFu have been described as challenging to navigate at times, indicating that they may not be intuitive or user-friendly.
The user suggests trying the free trial of SpyFu first and utilizing the on-boarding support provided. They highly recommend using SpyFu for SEO and PPC, considering it a great tool for competitive keyword research. Utilizing the help section and video tutorials is recommended. SpyFu is seen as worth the money, offering numerous features at a reasonable price. It is suggested to use SpyFu to stay competitive in advertising and to target specific issues with the help of the provided videos. For small businesses unable to afford SEO and PPC agency prices, SpyFu is considered a great investment. Trying SpyFu and upgrading are recommended, as it is easy to use, particularly for SEO purposes. Tracking competitors' ads, keywords, and spending using SpyFu is also advised. To improve digital marketing efforts, it is suggested to take advantage of SpyFu's capabilities. The tutorial videos provided by SpyFu should be watched for better utilization of the tool. For PPC professionals, SpyFu is considered a must-have. Running reports often and leveraging the information provided by SpyFu for informed business decisions are recommended practices. Taking advantage of reduced pricing for the trial period and the guided tour offered by SpyFu are additional suggestions. SpyFu is highly regarded as a great tool for competitive research and SEO analysis in online marketing. Considering SpyFu for gaining valuable insights and ensuring competitiveness online is suggested. Reviewers find it fast, easy to work with, and reasonably priced. For paid search analysis, utilizing SpyFu is recommended. The competition section of SpyFu can also be used to expand prospect pipelines with more companies.
Attribute Ratings
Reviews
(1-25 of 61)Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
September 01, 2023
Intuitive competitive research tool for advertisers
I used SpyFu to evaluate how competitors were advertising on Google Adwords. I used the text ad content, dynamic ad insertions, and display ads to create my own similar ads. I also used keyword targeting to create my own keywords to target based on competitors' keywords they use for bidding.
- Keyword research
- Text ad and display ad research
- Competitive analysis
- Keyword rank tracking
- Rank tracking does not work very well and doesn't provide as much information as competitors
- Backlink analysis is not very intutive
- Data isn't always accurate for some of my competitors
September 01, 2022
Smooth and Easy PPC Research Tool!
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
I use SpyFu for researching competitor PPC campaigns and keeping an eye on their strategies. I find it helpful to see what keywords they are targeting, what ads they are running, and the competition’s estimated traffic levels. This helps me plan my own PPC strategy accordingly. I started using it a few years back and found it an in budget and easy-to-use PPC analysis tool. It just lacks a lot of insights on Organic traffic, or else it would have been my lifesaver tool!
- PPC research
- Historic traffic (I love this)
- Easy presentable report
- Keyword tracking
- Keywords database (very weak!)
- Backlink database
- Adding a site audit will be addition but not having it will be fine
June 02, 2022
Excellent tool for competitors Google Ads analysis
Our Google ads campaign management team uses Spyfu for competitor and keyword research. It helps us know which keywords our competitors are targeting, what kind of ads they are running and what is their organic and paid traffic like. It also gives us a rough idea of how much they are spending via google ads (although that data isn't exactly correct). It also has useful backlinks information. Lastly the Google Adwords buy recommendations are pretty good too. They might not be always relevant but they do often enough include good suggestions that we end up using them quite frequently.
- It is great at tracking Google ads and keywords that your competitors are using. That is all excellent actionable data.
- You can download great, detailed reports of the same as PDF files if you want to keep them as a reference.
- Pricing is really cheap. We paid under 39 USD for a subscription and we feel like we got more than our moneys worth.
- Their ads spending data isn't correct. But you can make pretty accurate inferences from it since you know what you are spending.
- Google ad buy recommendations are a mixed bag. Some are useful, some are not.
June 01, 2022
A great SEO tool at an affordable price
I use SpyFu as part of my SEO work for both competitor research and keyword research to inform SEO strategies for my clients. I also use their reporting tool to provide monthly snapshots for my clients to show the progress we are making during the implementation phase of their campaign.
- The filtering options in the keyword tool are super helpful
- The multi-competitor keyword tool makes identifying keyword gaps so easy
- Their branded reports are easy to use and save us from having to pay for a different reporting service
- They provide real value at an affordable price
- I honestly can't think of anything I dislike or would change about SpyFu
May 26, 2022
Don't let your competitors know about this tool
I knew SpyFu was the real deal when our website's ranking rose by over a thousand positions in the same category in just a few weeks. It has become part and parcel of all our social digital campaigns. SpyFu has revolutionized our search marketing ventures by giving us an edge over our competitors in the search engine space. We use SpyFu frequently for keyword tracking, competitor analysis, and rank tracking while publishing our blogs.
- Dives deep into deep information pools so you are never short of ideas or strategies
- Increases website traffic to absurd numbers.
- Monitors your ppc competitors.
- Has been quite misleading in regards to ppc negative match recommendations.
May 26, 2022
Get Sneak-Peek of the Competition in one Click!
We use SpyFu mainly to find PPC keywords and keep tapping on our competitors. Though it offers SEO analytics and reports too in our company, we use it to find profitable keywords on which others are bidding/winning. Then, utilize them in our SEO campaigns to build organic traffic. Just plugin in the domain name (whether yours or competitor's) and you are done. It is a very straightforward tool!
- Competitor Analysis
- PPC Keyword Research
- SERP Rank Tracking
- Keyword Traffic and Volume Estimations are not precise.
- It would be nice if they made the results region / country specific.
- Report PDF takeout is not consistent. Misses out data points often.
May 24, 2022
Very impressive. Helpful. Reasonable price and they offer free services which I mostly used.
I used the free version of SpyFu and was very impressed. It made me want to dig deeper into SEO and Google ads because, with tools like this, even a novice can become an expert. My favorite thing is that you can see the strategy of other successful dental practices and copy them.
- It is very accurate in ranking and showing value for SEO.
- It seems to be a market leader as it was one of the first to come up with Google.
- It is especially good for competitive markets.
- Integration with more software like Dentrix or other dental.
- Nothing else, it's pretty good.
May 19, 2022
SpyFu- give it a tru!
We are looking for help with ranking our website in both paid and organic searches. SEO keyword research can be overwhelming, and we did not want to spend hundreds of hours looking for the correct terms. We are a retail business primarily focused on the luxury space in the business-to-business and business-to-consumer marketplace.
- Scan competitors websites.
- Provide keyword recommendations.
- Provide SEO tips.
- Cost
- Heard to search competitor keywords.
- Monthly vs annual billing.
SpyFu has been very helpful for compiling competitor data and identifying opportunities with this research. The usefulness in regards to using it for Paid Search is great! Specifically, SpyFu's capability to deliver a particular domain's ad history is very helpful in seeing what changes were made and how we can remain competitive.
- Competitor Insights
- Paid Search Ad History
- SERP comparisons
- Organic search data
- Integrating more content-creation tools for ad copy
- Allowing more free features
May 18, 2022
SpyFu - A worthy competitor.
The main purpose of using SpyFu for our website was to understand who our competitors were, where they were and what they were doing. Not only were we able to keep a tab on the organic activities of our competitors but also paid activities. Additionally, we were able to identify other similar files which we could have missed had it not been for the SpyFu's feature that allows us to do so.
All this allowed us to form more compelling strategy and outrun our competitor.
All this allowed us to form more compelling strategy and outrun our competitor.
- Keeping a tab on competitors organic and inorganic activities
- Helps identify where the competitor is getting the backlinks from.
- Identify competitors top content and the keywords that's bringing them traffic
- Get proper information of their current and past ADS run on Google.
- SpyFu can only support and fetch data from limited countries.
- Certain glitches like page not connecting
- The information isn't always complete for some websites.
May 17, 2022
Great tools for a great price
We use SpyFu periodically to monitor our search ranking, organic / paid traffic, and what keywords we are currently utilizing through our website. We also use SpyFu to monitor our main competitor's search engine ranking and to identify new keywords or opportunities for paid search. The primary goal of using this program is to rank higher in search.
- Keyword tracking
- Competitor research
- paid SEO results
- Guides of product use for beginners
May 17, 2022
The best keyword research tool on the market
SpyFu is a great tool for competitive research and paid search research. I like to conduct my research for all my paid ad campaigns and then export my results into a spreadsheet and find the most profitable keywords and other low-hanging fruit that I am not currently trying to rank for advertising. This has proven to be a very effective tool to conduct this research.
- Competitive Research
- Keyword Research
- Paid Keyword Analysis
- Cohort analysis
- Conditional formatting to find best keywords
May 17, 2022
Clean, comprehensive Competitor insights
At our full-scale marketing agency, we use SpyFu for SEM and SEO business intelligence. SpyFu helps us get an idea of our clients' competitors' monthly spending, ad copy, keywords, SEO rankings, and much more, allowing us to present findings and pivot campaign strategies quickly. A tool like this can take the "guessing" out of competitor conquest, or even defend our own brand name against competitor bids.
- Provides competitive intelligence
- Provides SEO ranking history
- Suggests negative keyword additions
- Accuracy of competitor PPC spend could be improved (we have proven this against our own URLs)
- Relevancy of Google Ads keyword "Buy recommendations"
- More complete (far-reaching) view of Ad Histories
May 28, 2021
SpyFu will give you the information you need
SpyFu is being used by my old organization Townsquare Interactive to find out about the company's SEO and PPC usage. We can do research on potentials client's advertising spend and see where they are ranking for certain keywords.
- can tell advertising spend
- has data on all companies using PPC or SEO
- user friendly
- advertising spend is not always accurate
- ranking are not always accurate
- misses information
May 04, 2021
Agency evaluation of SpyFu
SpyFu is a great competitive tool. It may not have the most bells and whistles, but it does provide the primary function needed for search advertiser evaluations. We don't take the spend data as gospel from it, but it provides fairly strong directional insight for us to work with. The price isn't too bad either.
- Competitive landscape
- Volume demand
- Creative insight
- Deep data analysis
- Spend accuracy
- High min traffic thresholds
April 29, 2021
I am not an SEO expert, but I love SpyFu.
I use SpyFu mainly to look up keywords to use in my SEO for blogs and website[s]. I also use it to research competitors. [...]
- Keyword research
- Identifying questions people have
- Helping me see what my competitors are doing
- Training would be awesome
March 20, 2020
SpyFu for Marketing Help
I work in the marketing dept, and we are the only ones who use SpyFu in the company. I help with our PPC/SEO/SEM strategies for Avidex, and this program helps us do a competitor analysis and strategize our marketing programs.
- Helps our company choose the correct keywords for our campaigns
- Shows us our competitors keywords
- Gives us guidance for future campaigns
- Can be confusing on how to choose the correct keywords based on their recommendations
- Our industry is not listed on their google ads program helper which is disappointing
- They send out to many emails regarding their services.
January 30, 2020
The Best Competitor Research Tool Out There
We use Spyfu to see what kind of competition our clients are facing and for what keywords their competition is targeting. It's also a good measure to see what our client's viability is with their given budget before we launch their campaign. We'll primarily use it to assess keyword rankings before we have enough data in Google Search Console.
- Free feature
- Accurate data
- Paid portion may seem a bit steep.
- Free version is very limited with what you're able to see.
January 30, 2020
Why I love SpyFu and you will too.
SpyFu is used primarily by me. Although my marketing team has access to it, I tend to be the one that uses it the most. We use it to find good keywords to use for our clients, as well as checking out what competitors are using and looking at their ads. Being able to see what ads specific competitors have been running, when they run them and their budget is a tremendous advantage for us in putting together plans for our clients.
- Gets info on competitor's websites. Simply putting in a domain name allows us to see what keywords they rank for organically, how much they spend on PPC and what their ads look like.
- Finds the best keywords for our clients. By showing what keywords are going to cost, how many searches per month, etc. it allows us to plan budgets more accurately.
- Obviously, not every website can be tracked. They add as many as they can, but sometimes a keyword or specific site just isn't being tracked yet.
January 28, 2020
SpyFu comes through
SpyFu allows us to get insights into the terms used by competitors and helps us build a planned budget for paid search spend for new clients. It also now gives us insights into how our SEO efforts are faring. We can see what terms - either paid or organic - should be given attention. The information on the backlinks of competitors helps us discover places we should add to our client's backlink profiles. All in all this tool is an important part of our arsenal. I have been using it since the early days and am impressed with how the tool has matured and added elements.
- Paid keyword research.
- Insights into organic keyword positions.
- Recommendations of terms to concentrate attention.
- Impact of brand terms.
- Levels of impressions - local, national, global.
- Exporting of competitor ad copy.
January 27, 2020
Straightforward competitive keyword tool
We use SpyFu across the organization for competitive research and analysis of organic website traffic. It allows us to see how our own website stacks up to competitors as well as how our clients' websites compare to their competition. We also use it to identify organic search keyword opportunities for web content creation.
- Provide competitive organic search data.
- Allows you to identify organic keywords for future content creation.
- As with any database, their keyword database has limits, so the data returned is relative to their database, not necessarily the full picture.
- When SpyFu database or scoring chances, the data provided can spike, thus causing confusion among stakeholders, we're reporting to.
January 24, 2020
SpyFu- Under the mask
SpyFu, along with other tools, allows us to see how people are accessing a potential client's website. We see a sample of what people have done in the past recent months — an example of organic terms that are puling up search results as well as some keyword research.
- Paid search keywords
- Organic keywords
- Accuracy- any product like this can only be about 40% accurate.
- Their account building tool could be more expansive, and not so 'set in stone'.
January 24, 2020
SpyFu Review
I use SpyFu to see what my competitors are using as some of their keywords. Competitive analysis. I use it to analyze potential keywords that I may want to add to our campaigns. On many occasions, I also use it to see SEO data. Most importantly is the SEM Keyword analysis, which also shows spent data.
- Shows Our Competitors in regards to PPC
- Keyword Analysis
- Doesn't differentiate between Google and other search engines.
- Has no Bing Data
January 24, 2020
SpyFu is a great tool for agencies and marketing teams
We use SpyFu for PPC and SEO research. As an agency, we use it for our own purposes and for that of our clients. It's easy to by people on our team to quickly understand the cost of PPC terms and run competitive reports. We will run reports and send them to clients.
- PPC Research
- Competitive Research
- Setting up Projects within SpyFu could be easier
January 18, 2020
SpyFu Search Analytics Review
SpyFu is being used by my organization in a variety of ways. We are an agency that works with various businesses to solve numerous business issues in a number of different markets. SpyFu has helped to save time and to make overall marketing efforts more structured and strategized backed by validated data.
- Keyword research.
- Keyword groupings.
- Additional paid media analytics.