SpyFu Review- How Does This Spy Tool Stack Up?

A little business espionage is about as old as time. But the way we see it, if your competitors are posting or doing something openly on something as public as the internet, you have a right to take a look. It’s not as if you’re hacking into the mainframes—which we would probably recommend that you not do. 

Just about every SEO and keyword tool out there uses some form of competitor analysis. In fact, it’s usually directly called competitor analysis. Whether it’s Ubersuggest, Mangools, or anything else, it’s there. 

SpyFu is true to form. It is one of the leading in SEO thanks to its rich feature set, solid reporting tools, and strong support for digital marketers. It does have a bit of a learning curve for newbies, but there are plenty of materials to help them get up to speed.  

In this SpyFu review, we’ll explore the key things you need to know about the SaaS tool. We’ll dive into the main features, pricing, and what types of users are best suited for the product. 

Without further ado, here’s everything you need to know about SpyFu. 

What Is SpyFu? 

SpyFu is a cloud-based digital marketing software designed to help users uncover valuable information for the most important keywords and ads for both paid and organic search. 

The idea is that with this information, you can do a better job honing your marketing campaigns. For example, you can see the top-ranking keywords and not only know which ones just simply are worth it, but also unearth new opportunities. 

Whether you do SEO, PPC, content marketing, or some combination of the three, SpyFu is an excellent way of guaranteeing a more successful digital marketing approach that will drive traffic, boost revenue, and help you do more with your platform. 

SpyFu Main Features

• API Access
• AdWords Advisor Reports
• AdWords History
• Add Your Own Keywords
• Backlinks Exports
• Backlinks Searches
• Custom Branded Reports
• Data Exports
• Domain Searches
• Export Advanced Contact Info
• Filter Sales Leads
• In-Depth SEO Reports
• Keyword Searches
• Organic Keywords
• Organic Ranking History
• Paid Keywords
• Unlimited Backlink Results

How SpyFu Works

SpyFu offers a limited free account you can get started using with no credit card. Just signup with your name and email address. 

From here, you’ll be taken to your campaign dashboard. There’s not much hand-holding. If you are a veteran marketer, you’ll know your way around and can still experiment with some of the core features. This is actually nice for those who don’t want to get stuck in front of a cumbersome tutorial process.

For newbies, there is plenty of helpful materials on the bottom of the page to help you start using SpyFu. 

The first thing you’ll want to do is enter a domain name. You can go with a competitor’s or even your own to get a quick snapshot of what’s going on with your site. And that’s the thing that really distinguishes SpyFu from the competition; it is super quick! 

How Much Does SpyFu Cost? 

The limited free account gives you a good taste of what SpyFu can do. But to really take your marketing campaigns to the next level, you’ll need to invest in a paid plan. 

SpyFu’s Basic Plan starts at $396 billed annually or $39 monthly. This may sound costly, but SpyFu doesn’t price by the number of research. 

That means, along with other keywords tools or even MozPro, you’ll have an unlimited number of keywords, keyword groups, domains, competitor domains, and unlimited price comparison. 

That’s why it’s actually an outstanding value, especially for marketers with several clients and agencies. 

There are some caps. With Basic, for example, you only get 250 sales leads and 5,000 ranked keywords, but you can up these limits for a reasonable $20/month on other plans. 

Do note all plans are supported with a 30-day no questions asked money-back guarantee. It is one of the few tools that have actually reduced the pricing over the last couple of years—exceptionally rare anywhere in the SaaS world! 

Check out the price break down below: 

SpyFu Features

You can do so much with SpyFu, so we’ll just touch lightly on some of the main reasons you should consider checking it out. 

1. Keyword Research 

Keywords are the backbone of any digital marketing strategy. Everything starts and ends with your keywords. 

With SpyFu, you can have detailed insights into keywords you search, including monthly search volume, estimated clicks, also buys ads, and even a snapshot into the top ads for it.

It’s way more than just getting a few related keywords so, for this feature alone, it’s worth checking out SpyFu. 

2. PPC Research 

Just about everybody is using PPC these days. So, if you want to better manage your ad spend, it’s good to know what your competitors are up to. With SpyFu, you can: 

• Find a competitor’s ad spend history
• Discover paid keywords 
• See keywords strengths and weaknesses
• See the ad copy without actually visit their sites 

We used this feature and discovered two competitors we had never heard of for the client we’ve been using throughout this review. 

3. Kombat 

This is a unique SpyFu feature. It helps you deliver the right keywords to your audience. To do this, you select two of your top competing domains. 

Then Kombat shows you a report that measures your keywords vs. theirs. From here, you can see keywords your competitors are ranking for, but you’re not along with keywords any competitor ranks for and other key metrics. 

Remember that if you rank for certain keywords and your competitor doesn’t, that’s not always a victory. It might be an unpopular search term, so it always cross-checks with search volume. 

Who Should Use SpyFu? 

Don’t let some of the other more advanced metrics and features throw you. This is an excellent marketing tool for all skill levels. 

The pros will love just how many different insights they can uncover with it and all the different ways you can use SpyFu to drive ROI. 

We’re not going to lie. There will be a little bit of a learning curve for the newbies. But it’s easy enough to pick up. Further, there are tons of support materials on the blog and an entire YouTube channel full of videos that detail everything on how to use SpyFu to the fundamentals for digital marketing. 

For PPC, SEO, competitor analysis, and keyword discovery, we can’t recommend this tool enough. 

Is SpyFu Worth It? 

You can do so much with SpyFu. What’s great about it is you can replace whatever keyword tools and other SEO tools and just use it instead. The only thing it doesn’t have is an SEO audit feature, but you can’t find that almost anywhere online for free nowadays. 

But the real value in SpyFu is how you can use it to optimize your digital marketing organic and paid campaigns. You don’t have to waste money on moonshot keywords anymore, and you can also use it to target new opportunities. 

Likewise, you can discover competitors and not just “borrow” strategy but maybe even launch strategic partnerships. 

And starting at just $33/month, that is a pretty sweet deal! 

Pros

• Very rich feature set
• Affordable 
• Performs very well 
• Great a discovering competitor’s others tool may have missed
• Can be used as a standalone keyword tool
• Shows your competitor ROI on their ad spend
• Unlimited reports
• Useful tutorials 
• Includes backlink tracking 

Cons 

• A little complicated for newbies especially understanding ad metrics 
• Doesn’t crawl the entire web for results

SpyFu Alternatives

One of the biggest names out there is iSpionage, which we have reviewed in the past. iSpionage is solid and, overall, an appealing option for competitor research. 

It is similarly priced, a little easier to use, and shares many overlapping features. In fact, it even has a couple of added features you won’t find with SpyFu—a Keyword Effectiveness Index and Ad Effectiveness index.  Both of these give you an algorithmic estimation of how good your keywords and ads are to help you refine them as necessary. 

With that said, we still say the SpyFu has the edge. First, it is just so fast that there’s no time waiting for the site to tabulate data. It can also pull data from 13+ years. 

Both offer free plans/free trials, so check them out and see which is the better fit for you. 

SpyFu Review: The Bottom Line

We all know there’s something we can be doing better. With SpyFu, it’s easy to see just what that is by learning from competitors’ strategies. Overall, there are few tools out there better suited for refining your marketing campaigns, so go ahead and check it out for yourself now!