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SpyFu

SpyFu

Overview

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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Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

SpyFu has proven to be an invaluable tool for conducting competitor research and analysis in the advertising industry. Users have praised …
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Smooth and Easy PPC Research Tool!

9 out of 10
September 01, 2022
I use SpyFu for researching competitor PPC campaigns and keeping an eye on their strategies. I find it helpful to see what keywords they …
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SpyFu- give it a tru!

8 out of 10
May 19, 2022
Incentivized
We are looking for help with ranking our website in both paid and organic searches. SEO keyword research can be overwhelming, and we did …
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Popular Features

View all 14 features
  • Competitive analysis (50)
    9.1
    91%
  • SERP ranking tracking (43)
    8.1
    81%
  • Keyword analysis (51)
    6.9
    69%
  • Backlink management (39)
    5.9
    59%

Reviewer Pros & Cons

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Pricing

View all 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
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Product Demos

Using Spyfu to Find Leads for a B2B Google Ads or SEO Agency - SpyFu Review and Demo For B2B Leads

YouTube

Jeff Demo 07 - Using SpyFu for Local SEO YouTube

YouTube

SpyFu Review Video Demo - Excellent or Scam?

YouTube

Domain Ad History Demo, Part 2 | SpyFu Domain Ad History

YouTube

Domain Ad History Demo, Part 1 | SpyFu Domain Ad History

YouTube

Spyfu Review: Pros, Cons, and Alternatives (+ Demo)

YouTube
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Features

SEO

Core features related to search engine optimization

7.2
Avg 7.8

SEO Channels

Features related to optimizing your website for specific channels

7.7
Avg 7.6

SEO Platform & Account Management

Features related to scalability and integration of the SEO platform

8.7
Avg 8.4
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Product Details

What is SpyFu?

SpyFu Video

SpyFu Demo

SpyFu Competitors

SpyFu Technical Details

Deployment TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo

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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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(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!

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.

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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

(26-50 of 61)
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Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use SpyFu to do keyword and competitor research. I need to know the search volume of keywords and which keywords competitors are bidding on so that I may optimize my marketing strategies.
  • SpyFu shows keyword search volumes and related keywords which I struggle to find elsewhere.
  • SpyFu shows details about any website's organic traffic.
  • I would like to be able to see keyword search volumes for more countries.
If you are starting out your business idea, it is wise that you first do keyword research to make sure there is an interest in your business idea, especially if it's an online business. It is also very helpful when you want to see who will be your competitors and how well they are performing by reviewing their website.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
SpyFu has been used by my organization for SEO/SEM research. Also, we used it for competitive analysis and keyword research. There is endless data available with SpyFu. It was used solely by the marketing department.
  • SEO Research.
  • Keyword Research.
  • The user interface could be more intuitive.
  • There's so much information, the learning curve can be fairly big.
I think that SpyFu is an awesome tool for the money. There is unlimited data that you can slice and dice. You just have to figure out what exactly you need in terms of SEO/SEM, PPC, competitive analysis &/or keyword research and then SpyFu can provide you with the reporting that you require.
Austin Voigt | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
SpyFu is mainly used by our paid media department and SEO department for competitive research. However, it is also a great tool for us to better understand how search engines are perceiving our clients' sites and marketing initiatives and allows us to have a better understanding of the digital marketing landscape.
  • Affordable price point compared to other similar tools.
  • An easy-to-use interface that makes it accessible to most of our employees regardless of experience level.
  • Strong information for us to reference in our marketing research.
  • SpyFu's data could possibly be a little more specific; compared to some other similar platforms, it's slightly simplistic.
  • SpyFu could consider providing more competitor information outside of search, and delve into other platforms like social, as this data is becoming more widely available.
  • SpyFu's user interface - while easy to navigate - also takes away a lot of customizations and levers you might be able to pull in other platforms.
SpyFu has a very friendly user interface that is easy to navigate, it has a lower price entry point which is great for smaller businesses like ours, and it does provide the basic data we need for our digital marketing research from both an SEO and paid media perspective. However, there are a few things that get sacrificed with these benefits; the data is not as robust as other platforms, the user interface is not a bit over-simplistic and not as customizable, and you're definitely getting a bit less when you pay a bit less.
Angela Lyons, MBA | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
The marketing department at ClientHub uses SpyFu to research keywords and ad campaigns for our paid search initiatives. There are many tools out there to do this, but SpyFu is pretty straightforward. In addition, you can see what your competition is doing for keywords and ads. Without proper keyword research, a company can find themselves spending quite a bit on ineffective ad campaigns.
  • Educational resources
  • Competitor information
  • Intuitive interface
  • Affordable price
  • I can't think of anything in particular that needs room for improvement.
Spyfu is great for both PPC and SEO keyword research. You can also see what your competitors are doing which can give you ideas for your own company.

I really like the feature that allows me to see ads that competitors are using.

Kombat is fun because you can compare yourself with competitors and see where there are similarities and differences.
Atilla Vekony | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use Spyfu to discover new profitable keywords for Google Ads and for SEO. It is also great to look at competitors' keywords and ads.
  • Discover profitable keywords.
  • Review competitor's well-performing ads.
  • Track your status on Google search results.
  • The best feature of Spyfu is called "Kombat," where you compare the keywords used by you and your competitors and can see which ones generate a lot of results for them, and which you're not currently using.
  • It is overwhelming first to navigate through all the available reports, but it's great that you can have a live orientation with one of their team members.
It is well suited for SEO firms and agencies serving other businesses. If it's just for your own business, it's probably overkill.
Max Milano | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Spyfu is one of the most useful tools for digital marketers out in the market right now. We use it for the obvious PPC keyword research, but the real value is at looking at competitors and figuring out their digital marketing strategy by looking at the keywords and budgets they have (or don't have).
  • The best tool for keyword research based on close competitors.
  • The best tool for discovering what PPC strategy and budget your competitors are using.
  • You can also use it for ad copy ideas.
  • It would be great if it expanded to Facebook.
Spyfu is a must before starting any AdWords campaign. If you didn't use it you would be in the dark about your competitors and it would waste a lot of your budget. Not really needed if you don't plan on running an Adwords campaign. It's still good to see what competitors are doing though.
Kiar Olson | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use SpyFu to help our customers gain insight into their competitor's most important keywords and what they are spending money on. It also gave us valuable keyword research for new markets and looking for new niches our customers require.
  • Great for keyword research.
  • Gain insights into what competitors are doing and ranking for.
  • Allow multiple profiles for customers so I can have a client website and then it's competitors on a dashboard.
For someone in the website marketing and SEO business, it's a great tool to help find the best keywords that work for competitors.
Sharon A. Dawson, DTM | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
The Marketing and Sales team of my company find SpyFu very helpful to check on our clients' websites, their competitors', and potential new customers.
  • Compare ranking versus competitor sites
  • Look up keywords relevant to site
  • See PPC ads
  • Get traffic data on competitor sites without needed their Google Analytics access
  • Would be nice to do more customization to the competitive ranking graph
Great for determining a strategy for digital marketing and SEO updates for a website, and to see how changes you made to the site help it improve over time.
December 21, 2018

Spyfu Usage Benefits

Johnny Norris | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
SpyFu is an excellent tool for getting a baseline of a client's web presence as well as their status vs their competition. It allows us to reveal some underpinnings of why or why not to make certain changes to their marketing strategy. It is also good for audits of web links, SEM, & industry trends.
  • Excellent at KW usage, costs, & recommendations.
  • Traffic estimates are helpful for showing how effective a general marketing plan pushes traffic in relation to competition.
  • Backlink tracking is nice to use for third-party proof of link sharing.
  • Estimates could be more accurate.
  • KW groupings could be broken down further in the SEM overview with costs & click frequency.
  • Sometimes data does not transfer from one tab to another when reviewing a particular domain.
SpyFu, in general, is a great every day tool for finding talking points for meetings, tracking general trends with competition, & for building KW sets.
Sylvia Flores | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use it to provide competitive analysis for clients, specifically when I am performing a marketing and brand audit. This helps me to establish a baseline with the client on what they are up against, so we can attack with intention. :)
  • The domain overview is extremely helpful - for CEOs, this dashboard is exactly the kind of quick hit, at-a-glance experience they want to see.
  • Worst performing and top performing keywords for paid search - this is an invaluable tool to determine how to approach paid against a competitor.
  • To adwords to buy - this is obviously a wonderful bit of intelligence for testing, and for the most part, holds up in battle testing.
  • Reporting is terrible - meaning, the PDF feature does not lay out correctly.
I think it's an excellent tool for marketers to keep a consistent eye on their competitive landscape so they can pivot as required. But the reporting feature is not great and creates an additional layer of hands-on manual work.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
As a primarily entrepreneur company, we are constantly looking to optimize our own campaigns—but in optimization comes beating out our competitors. We use SpyFu currently to look into exactly what our competitors are doing. Based on what they are doing we are able to tweet our own campaigns so that we can maintain competitiveness in the market.
  • Showing exactly what keywords our competitors are targeting, shows which ones we should target ourselves.
  • When determining a marketing budget for a new project, we are able to project how much SEO would cost based on what our competitors are doing.
  • Looking at what the competitors have in their backlinks helps us with optimizing our own website and landing pages.
  • Some of the smaller websites that don't receive much traffic are often hard to complete competitive analyses for.
Whenever a teammate has to complete a competitive analysis or asks about what the "others" are doing - I always will recommend that they use SpyFu to answer those questions. "what keywords should we target?" are also able to be answered using SpyFu. This helps when setting up a Bing or Google Adwords campaign.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use SpyFu to help us formulate our initial SEO and PPC keyword strategy for our clients by looking at their competitor's websites. Instead of starting from scratch, we find it useful to look at the keywords that are already performing for the competition to identify opportunities and as well as areas that have been ignored.
  • SEO Keywords
  • PPC Keywords
  • Look-a-Like Audience Development
  • Accuracy
  • Breadth of Research
SpyFu is an essential source of information that can be used to set the initial assumptions guiding a digital marketing campaign. However, because the data is not a primary source it would be a mistake to continue to guide campaign decisions in the long haul using this tool. Google Analytics and primary source advertising data is ultimately the key.
Lee'Ann Burgess | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
SpyFu is a great tool to get an overview of your competitors' keywords they are ranking for, estimated ad spend on Google Ad words, samples of their ad copy and allows you create projects to help you track your SEO and marketing efforts. My main use for SpyFu is to gain insight on keywords and links that my competitors and my clients' competitors are using.
  • Easy to navigate. The user interface is pretty straightforward and easy to use.
  • Projects: Create projects for your own company or for clients you are managing to track your efforts.
  • Insights on ad spend, keywords and impression share.
  • Price - I was a user for several years and trying out another platform, I canceled and was quickly offered the same platform I had used for years at half the price.
  • I know the ad spend for Google Adwords is estimated - It would be helpful if it was a little more accurate - maybe not a doable feature of SpyFu, but would be helpful.
If you own your company and have any involvement with tracking your marketing efforts as well as keeping tabs on what your competitors are doing and how they are ranking, I would recommend using SpyFu and at the very least, try it out for free to see if it is a good fit for you and your organization. It's a helpful tool and I have been using it for several years for my company.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use SpyFu in the marketing department. This tool is being used to help us in our content creation and looking at gaining competitor insights regarding our content direction. This gives us keyword insights not only for organic search but for paid search as well. The typical process we go through takes on 2 forms. The first is reviewing a keyword and looking for variations and then reviewing the landscape for that keyword. The second direction we take is inputting a competitor and see where they are dedicating their efforts for content creation outside brand names.
  • Extensive amounts of competitor data
  • Touches on both paid and organic search opportunities
  • Easy graphs to help illustrate competitive landscape
  • Since this tool scrapes millions of keywords listings it does take some manual filtering via Excel to get to what is truly going on.
  • It would be nice if they expanded into social as well to be able to have an all-in-one tool
  • A themes breakdown would help to eliminate the need for manual sorting and filtering
SpyFu is meant to be a competitive analysis tool and give you an idea where your competitors are with their content. This is not a standalone keyword research tool. I highly recommend utilizing at least one other service to back up keyword opportunities that are uncovered using SpyFu. The same goes in the opposite direction I would not suggest diving into a keyword theme without knowing how the competition is ranking and using that theme.
September 27, 2018

Good SEM Competitor Tool

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
The ad agencies I've worked at have used SpyFu to gain competitive intelligence. This is something SEM vendors partially provide and SpyFu helps fill in the gaps to work on a holistic SEM strategy.
  • Estimated cost per clicks by competitor. SpyFu provides deeper intel than the engines b/c the data is segmented by domain and is not masked
  • Estimated monthly traffic volume & costs associated with higher spending competitors. SpyFu provides deeper intel than the engines b/c the data is segmented by domain and is not masked
  • The cost per click information is not terribly accurate but can usually be used directionally. Obviously, with a paid product, people want exact data
  • The free tool has limited data that mainly show vague feedback on your competitors. Def need paid version for any useful info.
It is a directionally useful tool for providing full service SEM strategy. It is a must have in an agency's toolkit, since it's one of the most progressive competitive intelligence database out there that isnt from a vendor.
Jordan Comstock | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
My main use for SpyFu has been for advanced competitive keyword research. It is very easy to pull thousands of keywords for myself, and my competitors using SpyFu. Another big use of it is the reporting they provide. They auto-generate excellent SEO reports every month or so. They are a vital tool to our SEO success.
  • Keyword research
  • Reporting
  • Online ad research
  • Links are not as comprehensive as I would like
  • More tools than I use, which really isn't a bad thing
SpyFu is my favorite tool to gather mass keywords. So if you were looking to do competitive keyword research for your long term SEO strategy, it would be important to get as many keywords as possible. They don't charge by the row or anything, so you can grab many many keywords from as many competitors as you would like.
Rachel Hensley | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
SpyFu was used for me to do competition analysis on our direct competitors regarding Adwords. It gave me ideas about the Adwords Keywords our main competitors were buying and what their most successful Adwords ads were. SpyFu also estimates how much your competitors spend on Adwords monthly which is valuable information when you are in a very competitive field.
  • Gives you the most popular Ads for each month.
  • Shows you the keywords your competitors are using.
  • Spyfu will show you an estimate of what they believe your competitor is spending and this number is always low. They should evaluate the keyword prices more to give a more relevant estimate.
  • Free version only gives you around 20 keywords for each competitor. I wish it was larger.
  • Must sign in to see any SpyFu information even for the free version. This is a new thing and I liked it better when it was anonymous for free.
If you are just developing an AdWords campaign, SpyFu is one of the first places to start to see what the most successful businesses are doing with their Adwords strategy. It is also good to continually watch so you can always stay ahead of the industry you are in.
Jack Pennuto | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
WIth an effort to organize all of our digital marketing effort, across SEO, SEM, PPC and competitive analysis, we found SpyFu as a perfect tool to organize and review all these disparate items in one place.
  • Comparison tool of how our website compares to similar websites is helpful to understand where we are strong and where we have room to improve.
  • Identifying backlinks
  • Reviewing and recommendations for keywords
  • None
SpyFu is a full featured tool for reviewing all of our digital marketing needs, such as SEO, SEM, ppc and competitive analysis of websites.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Our marketing team has been using SpyFu for their keyword research tools, competitor analysis tools, and webpage traffic tools to better analyze how our organic website and PPC ads stack up against our competitors. SpyFu also allows us to research new keywords to use for our PPC campaigns inside of Bing and Adwords.
  • SpyFu's competitor analysis tool is unparalleled. A detailed, strategic breakdown of how competitors do or don't spend their advertising budgets, and how organic SEO plays into their overall traffic.
  • Researching new keywords has always been an important step when improving our organic SEO rank and SpyFu allows us to research keywords directly from the console.
  • SpyFu's overall platform is wide-reaching, but could be better optimized by allowing customers to see the data broken down across the various web browser paltforms, e.g, Google, Bing, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, etc.
SpyFu is excellent for both advertising and marketing teams looking to improve their paid and organic SEO ranks across Bing and Google. SpyFu can help you retain and gain market share on all web platforms with many different, unique SEO & PPC tools that provide you with detailed analyses via downloadable reports.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use SpyFu to analyze competitors' most successful keywords and advertising copy for my clients. It is easy to use and provides incredibly valuable information. The reports are excellent and easy to use. SpyFu helps you save a ton of money by avoiding the mistakes your competitors have already made. I also like the competitive spending estimates.
  • Easy to use
  • Comprehensive
  • Incredible Drill Down
  • I have no complaints.
Well-suited for online advertisers and SEO content developers.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We used SpyFu for competitive research for any campaign involving paid advertising. It was a great tool to get a basic understanding of what the competition was doing, and how to start to build your strategy.
  • Spyfu provides a very detailed snapshot of ad history for any competitor.
  • The competitor discovery ability is great.
  • Some of the graphs used to present data help to identify targets of opportunity.
  • The backlink tool provides some pretty off topic links.
  • The database doesn't seem to be as effective as others.
Great tool for someone learning how to navigate keyword research. As for all in one platforms, it's one of the best.
Brett Doucette, ABC, MBA | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
[We used SpyFu for] PPC keyword discovery and utilization. Also PPC diagnostics for improvement of existing domestic campaigns. Helps us target the right KW sets. Used exclusively by the Marketing department..
  • International KW targeting
  • Competitive intelligence / identifies competitors KWs and campaign spends
  • Organic and paid search overall campaign health
  • No API integrations with marketing automation platforms (that I am aware of)
  • Reporting is a bit wonky
  • Usability can use some improvements
A great KW research and competitive intelligence tool. Well worth the monthly/yearly investment. Less appropriate for hands on daily campaign management.
Chandler Elmore | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
SpyFu is primarily used by us to do competitor research. We use it to look at what our clients' competitors are doing with PPC efforts as well as baseline SEO analysis. It provides us with the opportunity to look at the big picture with a bunch of different players, not just our client.
  • PPC reports for competition. SpyFu allows you to gain insight into possible budget spend as well as what their ads look like.
  • The keyword tool within SpyFu is great for seeing what your web sites biggest hitters are as well as what your competition keywords stack against yours. If you share certain keywords, it ranks who has better traction.
  • Reporting is a weakness with the platform. It is not the easiest process to implement and the information can be better organized.
  • There are inaccuracies with the PPC reporting, especially for competitors. To our knowledge, the only way that PPC budgets are estimated is through ads that have already been clicked on the search network. This means that display, programmatic and other ad formats are not counted.
SpyFu is great if you need a quick, broad overview of your online efforts compared to the online efforts of your competition. It is a great tool to use when you are needing to estimate or come up with a new PPC spend for a client. It also is good in looking at the effectiveness of your website's keywords as compared with your competitors.
Gwendolyn Guarino | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Spyfu for competitive recon for PPC clients. Some of our clients need a more comprehensive competitor list. Some clients know who they consider to be competitors. Spyfu provides the data we need to target the appropriate (apples to apples) competitors. At the point where we can identify the precise competitors, we use Spyfu to get detailed keywords, adgroups and budget/bid data to be able to ferret out advertising opportunities.
  • This product links competitor data quite easily in the dashboard, from one domain to the next.
  • The overviews for each domain are clear and comprehensive, making the birds-eye-view complete.
  • The PPC vs. SEO views are clearly defined and easy to navigate.
  • Some of the competitor results seem unrelated to the primary domain. Much more manual research is required to get the best possible data.
  • Some keywords are completely unrelated. Again, manual research is required to get the best data.
  • Exporting to a CSV/PDF does not include manually added information. This is particularly disappointing.
I think Spyfu is the most effective when you have very little core data - seeking out a competitor list, gathering a comprehensive keyword or ad group list, building out new campaigns, and the like. If you already have a lot of intel, Spyfu will regurgitate the same information.
Kara Toedtli | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use SpyFu for competitive research for all clients. We also utilize it for PPC competition analysis including keyword research and spend.
  • Competitor analysis
  • PPC competition information
  • PPC Ad copy research
  • Better list of keywords when doing research
  • More information on ppc spend of competition
SpyFu is well suited for competitive analysis.
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