Item: iSpionage
Rating: 7
Author: Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with iSpionage

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use iSpionage typically for Paid Search—primarily for pitch decks, to get a sense of the space. It's good for getting the lay of the land in terms of competitor spend, which is useful if you walk into a pitch. Clients like to get the idea that you know their business pretty well, and understand the space.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Quick view PPC budget—even in a couple seconds you can see about how much competitors are spending
Snapshots of specific ads—amazing for comparisons and even ideas to vulture for your own ads
The Landing Pages tab is a good place to see which specific pages competitors are driving to

Cons

The Compare Competitor button sounds pretty sweet, but I've never been able to get it to work—it just says it's temporarily unavailable (I've tried it like 30 times over months). Maybe just a browser bug? Dunno
I wish there were more exportable data —the overall little chart would be nice, but I guess screenshotting works okay—more chart types would be nice too, or a filter option of data points to throw into that chart.
I wish I could export the "Top Ads" widget—you have to just copy paste it I guess...seems like a missed opportunity for quick use

Return on Investment

It's hard to quantify, but I believe I've saved quite a bit of time and energy in competitor research due to iSpionage
iSpionage has helped me get more knowledgeable, quicker, to gain trust with potential clients—again, not really measurable
I've surely maximized my clients' advantage by recommending proper competitive spend based on what I'm seeing in iSpionage

Alternatives Considered

SEMRush

SEMRush rules for quick organic insights, but its paid search insights aren't very substantial, it seems to me. iSpionage is the only tool I've seen or heard of that actually pulls in competitor ads and gives an estimated spend. That's pretty amazing—and clients will never stop asking about what kinds of ads and how much competitors are spending.

Other Software Used

Screaming Frog SEO Spider, SEMRush, Moz

Likelihood to Recommend

iSpionage is ideal for when you want to get a feel for the competitor landscape for a potential client. You can just pop in, throw in the URL, and see which competitors populate, then look at the average spend. I wish I could look back at like yearly average spend, easier (default on last 1 month). But it's great to get quick glimpses and build some quick talking points around that.

I don't think it's all that good for organic keyword analysis. I find the organic interface a bit clunky, with lots of information that I don't feel is all that relevant. Stick with paid search insights.

Comments

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See competitor's ads without Googling tons of times in incognito!