Affiliate marketing is a very competitive space. New affiliates join each day, trying to create a name for themselves in this industry. Due to the high number of affiliates, the competition is fierce. Affiliates are always trying to outsmart each other to gain an advantage. Every move by affiliates is calculated to ensure the best results. Usually, the affiliates with more experience win against the newcomers. Their experience and know-how are far superior. They have an innate feeling for what works and what doesn’t.
But, this doesn’t have to be this way. In recent years, spy tools have gained massive popularity amongst affiliates. They enable affiliates to “research” what the competition is doing and adjust. With these specialized tools, even beginners can go toe to toe with seasoned veterans.
Affiliate marketing is all about working smart instead of working hard. This is why these spy tools are growing in features and users. A few years ago, they were rudimental tools that offered value in specific cases. These days, they are one of the core tools every affiliate should use.
Why Use Spy Tools
Affiliates need to run offers that convert. This means they need great creatives, design, landing pages, and ad copy that works. Testing, while important, can get expensive if you are trying to test too much. This can lead to a lot of spending without much success. Affiliates realized that this way of optimizing campaigns is not cost-effective. They turned to something better, to spy tools.
Spy tools are used for competitive intelligence. You can use them to find what campaigns are successful. And of course, what exactly is the thing that makes them successful. They allow you to analyze your competitors’ ads, landing pages, copy, and much more.
Instead of testing an immense amount of variables yourself. You can see what successful affiliates are using and get inspired by it. With a few clicks, you can find out what makes their ads work. If you do your research, you can put in place their ideas into your campaigns at a fraction of the price they paid. Proper spying will result in better ROI, less money spent, and a lot of extra change in your pocket!
Which Spy Tools Should You Use?
The question that troubles most affiliates today is which spy tool to use. Currently, there is a lot of choice on the market. They all vary in features, price, and general usability. To save you some time and money, we compiled a list of the best spy tools that affiliates should try!
1. Adplexity
Adplexity is one of the leading spy tools on the web. Most affiliates heard of it and for good reason. Adplexity is made for:
- Mobile
- Desktop
- Native
- Push
- e-Commerce
- Carriers
- Enterprise
The platform is highly optimized for these use cases. If your campaigns focus on them, then Adplexity is most likely the best spy tool you can use.
Finding profitable campaigns from your competition is made simple. Using Adplexity's detailed analytics and easy-to-use UI. There is an impressive amount of specialized search options and filters. These can help you find and spy on the campaigns you want.
Adplexity also offers the opportunity to uncover hidden campaigns. Those that run only on mobile carrier traffic. These offers are from all around the world. They include every major country and many smaller ones that are profitable.
Filtering can be done through keywords, advertisers, affiliate networks, publishers, and much more. This data allows you to analyze these campaigns in incredible detail. Use that data to optimize your campaigns and maximize your ROI.
Pricing
Pricing for Adplexity is amongst the higher ones, but it is worth every penny! The tools range from $149 to $249 depending on the tool you want. The price is steep, but the service should pay for itself ten folds if you use it correctly.
2. SpyPush
If you are into push ads, then SpyPush is one of the most useful services online!
SpyPush is a push traffic only spy tool. It’s optimized for push in every way possible. From the UI to the features, they all complement analyzing search traffic. This focus on push means that they managed to strike deals and partnerships. These enable them to offer over 500,000 push ads from more than 90 countries. This is possible only because they work with the largest push notification networks.
SpyPush is very beginner-friendly and it offers a lot of features newcomers will love. Their filtering system is also quite advanced. It includes filtering by keywords, country, ad networks, devices, languages, activity, popularity, and much more.
The data is well presented and easy to understand. You can click through LPs. See similar creatives. Better understand the niche you are analyzing and what is working for it.
Pricing
One of the great things SpyPush offers is a free trial. The trial enables you to use the service with some limitations. Those limitations are mostly reflected in the limited GEOs you can analyze. But the trial should be more than enough to get a feel for the service. If you decide to use this spy tool, it will cost you $49 per month for the full experience.
3. AdBeat
AdBeat provides a lot to its users looking for display advertising. It is an excellent platform. It allows access to the marketing strategies of competing affiliates across the web. They provide spying for smartphones and tablets (iOS and Android are both supported). This is great as mobile campaigns are always on the rise.
AdBeat has one of the biggest advertising intelligence databases. It can be used by its users to their advantage. Their data is collected from over 120 ad networks in 20 countries across 4 device types. This data isn’t mobile-only, it includes ad data from desktop, mobile, native and pre-roll ads.
They have access to the top Ad networks like Google Display Network, Adsonar, Doubleclick, Pulse 36-, MSN Content Network, as well as Outbrain, Taboola, and Revcontent.
With all that data, users can easily find the highest traffic drivers in just a few clicks. There is also a handy visual data feature that makes understanding the data a breeze.
Pricing
AdBeat has two paid plans for its users. The plans offer varying amounts of features and tools. Before subscribing to the more expensive one, check the “Standard” version. Most likely it's enough for your use case, as well as advanced users. The prices are as follows, $249 per month for the Standard plan and $399 per month for the Advanced plan.
4. Mobidea
Mobidea with its push and native variations enables you to find the best performing ads within seconds. They include some incredible features which are a blend of other spy tools. Making it one of the most complete packages on the list.
Some of their best features are:
- CPC bid history
- Campaign alerts
- Simple User Interface
- GEO Partitioning Algorithm
- LP rippers
- Hourly ad updates
- Advanced search filters
- Live support
Their Push tracker can track ads from over 40 of the top push ad networks. Including big names like PropellerAds, ZeroPark, MegaPush, and more. Their Spy Native can help you with native ads from over 27 ad networks, 266 affiliate networks.
This is a vast number of campaigns you can access and analyze. It will have a big impact on your understanding of certain offers and the ways people advertise for them. With a bit of analysis, you can find the best practices to ensure highly profitable campaigns.
Pricing
Both Mobidea Native and Push have a flat monthly rate without any additional costs. The rates are $59 for Push, $79 for Native, and $124 for both.
5. Anstrex
Anstrex is one of the best ad spy tools available on the market. They have a huge database that can rival any other spy tool, and it’s updated regularly. They offer their services in native, push, and dropshipping. So you should be able to find the plan that works best for you.
One of their best features is their incredible UI. It is very simple to use, intuitive, and well designed. It enables you to do useful things like previewing the landing page instantly. Anstrex also offers a lot of filtering tools. These can help you better analyze creating metrics.
With Anstrex you will have access to data from more than 40 affiliate networks and 8 million ads across 90 GEOs. All this means is that with Anstrex you will get a lot of information about campaigns. The best part about it is, it only takes a few clicks, saving you time and money.
Pricing
Anstrex is one of the most competitive Spy Tool prices currently available. They offer their services for $69 for native or $89 for push.
Visto.li
Visto is a bit different from the rest of the list. It’s a lesser known spy tool that focuses on Facebook ads. The best part about it is, it’s completely free to use basic functions. Of course, the features can be significantly expanded by paying a bit extra but the base ones can be quite useful as well. Here are some of the features it brings to its users:
- 1-click filtering
- Constantly updated ads from 50 GEOs
- Advanced AI and algorithms that give you better insight into industry trends Simple UI
- Downloading pre-landers and copy from spied ads
Pricing
The pricing for Visto.li is spread into 4 plants.
- Free (200 searches daily)
- Pro ($99 per month)
- Premium ($179 per month)
- Elite ($329 per month)
Conclusion
No matter which of these spy tools you decide to go for, you won’t regret it. All these vary in functionality and price, so pick the ones you find the best match your case. Before signing up for a specific one, check if there are any trials or discounts. There are always some available at any given time.
A smart thing you could do is sign up for the shortest plan you can find and test out which of these tools work best for you. Some affiliates love combining many spy tools for a better workflow. This also greatly improves detailed analysis of certain campaigns and ads. This might seem like a lot of money. But remember that if you use these tools, your campaigns will make a lot more revenue in general.
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