SEO and advertising research tools
4.5/5 (81 reviews)Pros
The volume of information that can gathered. Not only can you track competitor keywords but it's an excellent prospecting tool for lead gen, which is a lesser known aspect of the software. The relative ease of use is another bonus, the reports and dashboards are a lot clearer and easier to use than many of the other SEO tools I use/have used.
Cons
It's a bit pricey, but it has proved itself in terms of ROI from both improved SERPS positioning and lead generation. Customer service could be a little better too.
Thanks for taking time to share a review, Melanie! I hope we can wow you in the future should you need any customer support. We're available via live chat on our site and email, with Facebook messages, and Twitter giving an assist. We love to hear that you're getting a lot out of the tool. Right on!
Generally speaking, SpyFu has been great, it's a powerful tool, and often you'll run into clients who require this level of analysis both organically, and paid. I've come back time and time again over the last 10 years or so.
Pros
The UI is easy to navigate, and lots of ways to continue your search via finding more competitors, and looking at their competitors and so on. On the SEO side, this software is fairly indespensible, though it has competitors which do similar things at different price points. SpyFu however has been my go-to for many years, and having tested many of the competing products, especially during darker times for SEO many years ago, SpyFu did a quick job of staying current, which is one of the most important things for software like this. When there's changes to algorithms, or how we gather data, who's the most reliable source to get you that info? SpyFu has been that for me.
Cons
Generally the cost is prohibitive. More PPC level insights would be useful, but really they're working off whatever data they can get access to, and do a fairly good job of it. The only downside is many of the old Landing pages are not cached or visualized so when you click on the link to view the competitor's page, it doesnt exist more often than not. This feels like a huge waste of time.
Overall, this is a very good first-to-go-to tool when you start a project to see how the existing competitors are doing and then accordingly create the strategy. Though, not only for the starting project, but can also be used for existing project analysis. It helped with analyse to see the loopholes that were harming rankings lots of time.
Pros
This is the best SEO analysis tool out there when it comes to watching what's the SEO market's current situation to understand how to start optimizing your website for the best possible start. Before launching any website or project, SpyFu is one of the first tools I go to to analyze the competitors, where they spend money, how are their currenty rankings, what keywords they use or rank for, etc. I sometimes even use its backlinks checker of the competitors with Ahrefs and while cross checking it always gives the reliable data. What's more, the reporting section or the reports itself are very good. They are intuitive and very easy to understand, which makes it easy to present to third-party who doesn't understand much of SEO. Makes life easier!
Cons
A bit more flexibility on the data aggregation in reports would be good. Also, it would be awesome if the developers focused on the local research slightly more.
I've been able to gain an edge over my competition by seeing what they're doing and what's working. I've also been able to build a list of negative keywords to avoid paying for needless clicks in my PPC campaigns.
Pros
I think this is one of the best SEO tools out there for competitive research. It gives you actionable data on what your competitors are doing online, including the keywords they're targeting. I've found that the data SpyFu gives you is fairly accurate and if you use it, it's fairly easy for it to pay for itself. I use it to find out who is bidding on what keywords and what they're doing with their paid campaigns. For example, if I find a company that has spent a ton of money on a particular keyword over a long period of time, I know it's profitable for them and it's worth checking out.
Cons
I'm not a fan of their lead generation tool because it doesn't filter out as many businesses as I'd like. I also think that they should offer better keyword ranking tools, such as segmenting based on search engine. For example, you might rank #1 in Bing for a certain keyword and #2 in Google. This would be helpful information to know so you can focus on the appropriate traffic source.
SpyFu provides you with tons of data about any website you enter. It all comes down to how you use that information to improve your website's ranking and SERPs. The tool itself is great.
Pros
I have been using SpyFu for years now. It is one of the best competitor analysis tools out there. I mainly use it to see for what keywords my competitors rank for and where they get their backlinks from. This is, however, just the basics. You can do a lot more with SpyFu.
1. Find keywords for PPC. See what keywords your competitor is targeting in a PPC campaign and what it is paying for those keywords.
2.AdWords analysis will give you an overview of any website's AdWords campaign and how it is going for them.
3. SERP analysis is another great area where SpyFu will help you identify keywords and SERP position of your competitors.
Cons
1. Most often, the data that SpyFu pulls is outdated. This is one area where they need to work.
2. You get to see PPC details of AdWords only. No Facebook, Bing, or other PPC networks.
Must Use Tool for PPC & SEO work
Pros
SpyFu provides great insight into keyword & competitor research, which are the building blocks of SEO & PPC. You can do keyword research for organic search - what is your competitor ranking for, what are their positions, how difficult is the keyword to rank for, etc. While on PPC keyword research you can figure out what keywords your competitors are targeting, what is the estimated ad spend, what is their ad copy, etc. This gives you a comprehensive idea of what the competition is doing & what their strategy is.
Cons
The biggest drawback of SpyFu and its competitors as well is that the data is not fully accurate - they are estimates and therefore cannot be relied upon in entirety. The data is more of a directional or order magnitude use - which still is vary useful to know especially when researching for PPC. The data sources for PPC is limited - like it covers only AdWords and not Yahoo & Bing - although the search share of these platforms are way smaller than Google - is still a gap that can be filled in.
Pros
SpyFu is ridiculously easy to use... Just plug in a competitor's domain, hit go, and get access to a treasure trove of competitive insights on your competitor's PPC, SEO, and back-linking efforts. My favorite feature of SpyFu is building keyword lists for PPC campaigns based on the keywords SpyFu sees competitors bidding on in real-time. For businesses in hyper-competitive online industries, this information can mean the difference between growing or going out of business.
Cons
Sometimes there isn't data available, which is frustrating. It seems like 20% of the time, SpyFu is making something up with organic keywords for competitor websites.
Pros
I really love the ability to quickly find information for ad campaigns while both sitting with prospective buyers, and for my team to use to optimize campaigns.
Cons
I have no cons about this product, does what it says it will do. Also the pricing is very reasonable for great campaigns & insights.
Pros
I love the accuracy with which it shows the list of organic and paid keywords of my competitors. I also love the ad history feature where I can see the ad copies of my competitors. AsWords Advisor feature that recommends new keywords to bid for is also quite handy.
Overall, it's an excellent tool to see what competitors are doing. Even while bidding for new keywords, it helps to see other ad copies that are working.
Cons
While the tool is great, it's not complete. I mean if you want to just sign up one tool for your marketing team, this won't be enough. You'll need another tool like SEMRush or ahrefs. Though their competitor research features are not as as good as SpyFu's, they have wider features like backlink audit, technical SEO audit etc.
We use this regularly and it helps us to keep a good ides of how our company is doing in comparison.
Pros
Our company has been utilizing this site for some time now and is has been very helpful to have a good idea of comparison for other company's like us.
When I need something that I cannot find, their customer support is there. I've enjoyed using SpyFu over the past 3 years and will continue using is as one of my SEO and AdWord tools.
Pros
In comparison to other Ad and SEO tools, SpyFu offers a lot of great analytics. I like using it before taking on new clients to compare SEO and Ads. It also provides a great AdWords template to get started and the monthly reports and monitoring is good. Great value and tools!
Cons
I wish it offered more local business tooling but I've found work-arounds to get what I need before starting a new project.
SpyFu is an excellent SEO tool that should definitely be added to your existing kit of software.
Pros
SpyFu enables keyword research and planning by essentially spying on your competitors. The entire process with SpyFu is painless and simple considering a perfectly fluid website and user experience.
We particularly benefit from the PPC/CPC metrics that help us target particular keywords in paid search.
Site monitoring is a top feature of SpyFu, as well.
Essentially, you can log in and see what your biggest competitors are doing on a daily basis. It's incredible and it helps narrow the gap.
Cons
I find the data to be unreliable at times. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, considering that it *seems* accurate for the most part. But it is an estimation service. Some of the metrics can also be a little confusing, but with practice it becomes a better experience.
Overall, I think is a greta tool for the value!
Pros
Really reasonably priced. Much of the digital marketing realm is aimed to mid and large companies, which prices smaller companies out their products. SpyFu helps fill this void.
Cons
You get what they give and the customization for what you want is limited. I would love to create my own custom keyword lists and track custom competitors over time. There are SERP competitors/results that I am not interested in and think it would a stronger tool, if you could bring down the keywords and competitors you care about.
Helps me get more keywords to bid against without doing too much research.
Pros
Really useful to get ideas from competitors. A little bit more complicated than one click, but it gives me good direction to do more research. Combined with SEMRush or something similar, you can get a lot of intel.
Cons
Put more emphasis into your core differentiator, the PPC research tool. Also, a high level report on what's important/best recommendations would make it easier for me to use.
If you need to compare your company to your industry, this is 100% the way to do that.
Pros
I mostly use this tool for competitor analysis and it is fantastic. We constantly get new keywords and ad copy from SpyFu while looking at our competitors in our industry. I also use this for working with new clients. It helps me gain perspective on any industry.
Cons
There really isn't anything that I do not like about this software. I have recommended it to many people who own and run businesses and it works very well.
Spyfu has been been an important tool in setrting up and maintaining many client projects. We utilize the research tools on a weekly if not daily basis. Highly recommended for the price.
Pros
Very easy to find out what keywords that my competitors are organically ranking for or paying for. Also a great tool for finding competitor backlinks. The shared keywords featur is also nice to see how I stand along with my competitors.
Cons
I find that the competitors recommended by Spyfu are not always that accurate, it is best to do research against the competitors you have already identified. Local research is also a little bit light unless you are researching a major metropolitan.
Pros
allows me to quickly access information about keywords and ppc history relevant to our clients. can print reports too!
Cons
the information does not match reality about 50% of the time. i understand it's hard getting this data but i get disappointed
Spyfu's best feature is its price. It's unbeatable! If I were to subscribe to only one SEO/SEM tool. It would be Spyfu.
Pros
I like the ability to see my competitors paid search ads. It's usually my first stop when starting a new campaign. I go to SpyFu to spark ideas and to validate my own ideas.
Cons
It's not my favorite link building tool. I think you need the resources of an Ahrefs or SEMrush to get the most accurate insights.
Competitive insights
Pros
SpyFu provides me with a birds-eye view of competition. This allows me to benchmark spend & performance, without spending a lot of time. Great tool!
Cons
I do notice that the projections of competitor spend on PPC/SEO are not 1:1. It gives more of an accurate ratio than an actual amount. That being said, it is still great to take insights from. Just know that the $ amounts are not 1:1!
One of the easiest and most pleasing competitor keyword research tools that I've used over the past 10-years.
Pros
At first, I liked that SpyFu was free and offered a tremendous amount of information about my competitors. Now, as a long time user, I enjoy the depth of information that it brings to my fingertips.
Cons
From quality to value there are no Cons when it comes to SpyFu and the benefits it offers.
Pros
Good Reporting tool on overall visibility.
Cons
Not as robust as some of the other paid tools like SEM Rush of Moz. You can get alot of this data directly out of Analytics and Adwords.
Pros
Very easy to use interface and gives useful information to incorporate into paid campaigns. Very easy cancellation process too, if the need arises.
Cons
Sometimes the data can be a bit "off", but I understand there are limitations to the information they can collect on competitors.
Thanks for taking the time to share a review, Kyle!
Pros
I love the "kombat" mode that gives you an idea of how competitors stack up and also provides you with unique things they are doing (i.e. keywords they rank for that you don't)
Cons
Sometimes you have to run multiple reports to get the info you want across competitors as there are limits on how many you can compare at once.
Easy way to spy on your competitors.
Pros
Great tool to find competitors keywords and their ads. You get good insight into your competitors. I would recommend this service to anyone.
Cons
There are some websites which are missing in their database so I can't get any info on their campaigns.
When my clients absolutely, positively, have to have the best data to succeed, my "goto" is SpyFu
Pros
SpyFu is outstanding.
It has a combination of the best keyword info out there along with the best data presentation.
It has a huge database, and really gives you insight into how keywords perform and how to market with them.
It shows you adwords versions too so you can know what the "best in class" are doing.
I highly recommend SpyFu. I use it for my clients regularly.
Cons
I really can't think of anything I don't like about it.
Thanks for the kind words! We're big fans of learning from the "best in class" and sharing that info with smaller businesses. Glad it's working well for you!
In terms of helping to give SEO clients an edge it's a great tool, and its lead gen capabilities are excellent as well. It's a 'stay in the toolbox' software when I have trialed and tried out many more that have long since been retired.