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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

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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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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. :)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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..
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.
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.
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