iSpionage Review – Can This Tool Provide Valuable SEO Data?

Borrowing, spying, stealing, or whatever you want to call it from your competitors is about as old as time. In many cases, it’s not even the same industry. Take Apple, for example. Everybody from Dell to UPS and Ford has copied their ads. 

The reason people do it is because it’s effective. And while we’re not endorsing wholesale content theft, there are lessons you can learn both from your industry competitors and other big names. 

This is exactly what iSpionage proposes to do for you. It provides you with valuable SEO data from your competitors. It shows you PPC campaigns, advertisement content, and even landing pages. 

It’s all very useful, which is why you often see some form of competitive analysis baked-in to most SEO tools. iSpionage is a dedicated option and can seem pricey since its most affordable plan starts at $59. So is it worth it, or can you get enough out of your normal SEO software like Mangools or Ubersuggest? 

Uncover the answer to this question and everything else you need to know in this ultimate iSpionage review. 

What Is iSpionage? 

iSpionage is a product of marketing tech company TapClicks. TapClicks has been around since 2008 and focuses on marketing workflow, analytics, reporting, and data. In addition to their suite of software tools, they also acquired a few big names in SEO, including Raven Tools. 

iSpionage is a separate product that focuses specifically on competitor analysis. It provides not only website monitoring, but also competitive keyword research and landing surveillance. The goal is to help digital marketers get an edge, especially in terms of paid ad campaigns. 

One of the real standout features of iSpionage is directly seeing your competition’s PPC budget, clicks, and keywords so you can not only bid better but also create more effective ads. 

This gets down to iSpionage’s core value proposition. They claim you can spend your ad budget more effectively to drive more engagement and conversion by using it. When you look at it in these terms, especially if you spend thousands monthly, even their most expensive plans seem like quite a bargain. 

iSpionage Features

• Competitive analysis 
• PPC 
• Website Monitoring
• Benchmarking
• Keyword researching
• Keyword Tracking
• Trend Analysis
• A/B Testing
• Landing pages and web forms
• Rank tracking
• Comparison tool

Getting Started With iSpionage

iSpionage offers a limited free account you can get started using without a credit card. Simply provide your name and email then set an account password. Then they’ll ask you a few questions to help tailor the services to your needs. 

With the free account, you get up to 10 free competitive reports each day. You also get three competitor alerts and free marketing tips. At this level, you can get a basic look at PPC budgets, keywords, landing pages, and other competitors. You also can use the handy Compare tool to track the difference of up to three different competitors at a time. 

While the software is intuitive and straightforward to use, it’s definitely intended for marketers who have experience with SEO. There’s no tutorial or handholding here. But if you do get lost or are a newbie, you can find helpful resources on the blog or through connecting with the support team. 

iSpionage Pricing

While the free plan gives you a nice look at what iSpionage can do, any marketers looking to get serious with their competitive analysis will need to upgrade to a paid plan. As with most SaaS tools, they do offer promotions all the time. So, take these pricing tiers with a grain of salt since you’ll likely be able to score a sweet discount. 

The $59/Month Starter includes: 

• 1 User
• Unlimited Research
• 10,000 Data Exports Per Day
• 5 Competitor Keyword Alerts
• LOCAL SEM Keywords Monitoring
• 15 PPC Keywords Monitoring
• 3 months of historical data
• 1 SEM Project
• SEM Competitor Monitoring Alerts
• LOCAL SEO Rank Tracking
• 100 Keywords Rank Tracking
• 5 SEO Projects
• Unlimited Keyword Grouping
• Scheduled Reports
• Email Support

Upgrading to Professional gets you: 

• 1 User
• Unlimited Research
• 100,000 Data Exports Per Day
• 10 Competitor Keyword Alerts
• LOCAL SEM Keywords Monitoring
• 25 PPC Keywords Monitoring
• 12 months of historical data
• 5 SEM Projects
• SEM Competitor Monitoring Alerts
• 500 Keywords Rank Tracking
• 10 SEO Projects
• Unlimited Keyword Grouping
• Scheduled Reports
• White Label Report
• Email Support (High priority)

For agencies and growing teams, the Advance Plan at $299/month goes even further: 

• 3 Users 
• All Pro Features 
• 25 Competitor Keyword Alerts
• LOCAL SEM Keywords Monitoring
• 50 PPC Keywords Monitoring
• 24 months of historical data
• 10 SEM Projects
• SEM Competitor Monitoring Alerts
• LOCAL SEO Rank Tracking
• 1,500 Keywords Rank Tracking
• 20 SEO Projects
• Unlimited Keyword Grouping
• Customer Success Manager 

In terms of pricing, it’s a little better than some of the alternatives. iSpionage is often compared to SEMrush’s competitive analysis tools. This starts at $99/month versus iSpionage’s $59 Starter Plan. However, you also get a lot more, including full SEO and some social media management functionality with SEMrush, so the price difference ends up balancing out. 

The one downside is you have to be on a $299/month or Enterprise plan to have more than one user. For small businesses, who may have a few digital marketing specialists working together, this definitely feels a bit pricey. 

iSpionage Features

iSpionage has some great features that are wrapped up in an easy-to-use and pleasant UI. Here are a few of things you’ll do with iSpionage:

1. Competitive Analysis 

iSpionage provides PPC and SEO keyword data from Google, Bing, and Yahoo. This is nearly 100 million keywords, along with 100 million ds across 45 million domains. It’s truly one of the biggest databases out there, so you know the information it provides is going to be extremely useful for you. 

2. PPC Keywords

iSpionage reveals not only organic keyword data but also PPC keywords. This is an excellent way to discover keyword opportunities. And iSpionage makes it track with their Keyword Effectiveness Index. You also see valuable data including CPC, number of ads, search volume, average position, and first/last seen date. 

3. Ads 

See exactly the ads your competition is running anonymously from within the iSpionage app. This will help you get ideas for your own copy. 

Similar to Keywords, there is also an Ad Effectiveness Index, so decipher high performing ads along with more keywords you could be using along with monthly traffic, rank, and duration information for the campaign. 

4. Organic Keywords 

Organic keywords are essential for all SEM strategies. iSpionage Organic Keyword features help you chat page ranks, the corresponding keyword density, URLs, average person, and trendlines. It also has a really cool Traffic Value, which estimates how much revenue the individual keyword brings in. 

What’s cool is you can run this on your platform to get a better idea of what keywords are bringing in value for you. 

5. Competitors

iSpionage also identifies the competition and ranks them in terms of the ad budget, unique keywords, overlapping keywords, and average position. For large companies, they can have hundreds of results, providing you tons of useful information about rivals, big and small. 

Who Should Use iSpionage? 

You don’t have to be an advanced marketer to realize the advantage of competitor research. But particularly if you feel like you’re in a very specific niche where you seemingly have no competition, this is the right software for you. Because even if you do have a very unique product, there will be something similar out there that may be funneling away interest. 

But there is one catch, to really benefit from iSpionage, your competition must use PPC ads. Otherwise, you’ll be able to use a fraction of what the software can do. 

So, if you’re in a market dominated by social media advertising, iSpionage won’t really be helpful unless your rivals also have parallel web campaigns. But if PPC is a driving force for you or your clients, then be sure to check it out. 

Is iSpionage Worth It? 

Even if you’re not sold 100% of competitive analysis, you have nothing to lose by taking advantage of the free plan to do a little research. That alone is worth it just to get a better sense of ad budgets, keyword opportunities, and an extended look at your competition. 

But for paid campaign driven marketers, it absolutely can be an invaluable tool to you. If you manage monthly budgets worth thousands of dollars, even the Pro and Advanced plans are worth it to help you extract more value and create better-refined campaigns. 

The one question you’ll have to ask yourself is whether it’s worth it to go with a dedicated option like this or try to find overlapping features in full SEO products like SEMrush.  

It would be nice if iSpionage had a few more features, including site audit and other on-page SEO tools, because you’ll still need to invest in one of those to go alongside it. 

Pros

• Excellent competitive analysis tool 
• Easy to use
• Great UI 
• Affordable 
• Pulls data from Google, Bing, and Yahoo 
• Allows you to monitor landing pages, ads, and other content anonymously 
• Estimated budget and revenue tools are really helpful
• Excellent keyword research and rank tracking 
• Free plan

Cons

• Would be nice if multi-user support was on lower-tiered plans
• Likewise, would benefit from onsite SEO tools
• No social data

iSpionage Alternatives

As mentioned, SEMrush is a frequent comparison for iSpionage. However, this can be a little misleading as SEMrush is a complete SEO solution, and iSpionage is focused specifically on competitive analysis. 

They are each great tool, but as excellent as SEMrush is, many marketers will appreciate the direct focus of iSpionage and its easy and intuitive interface. 

On the other hand, SpyFu is a true rival to iSpionage in the competitive analysis space. And their plans start from just $33! However, you don’t get the Keyword Effectiveness Index and Ad Effectiveness Index. Though SpyFu does pull data from a staggering period of 13 years, which can really benefit you.  

Both are great options and have free plans. So, check them out and see which one is the better fit for you before committing.