Every online move you make is vulnerable to tracking. Every time you go to a website, click on a link or finish a transaction, a record of it is kept somewhere and can be linked to your identity. But there’s a benefit before you give in to fear and restrict cookies to the point of extremes: you can also keep an eye on what other people are doing online.

Additionally, you would want to know what your competitors are doing as a marketer, wouldn’t you? Tools like Ad Spy are useful in this situation. Using them gives you access to a wealth of information, including the sources of traffic for your rivals’ websites, the costs associated with their paid advertising campaigns, the most effective content, the kind of partnerships they enter into, and much more. Indeed, a total paradigm shift.

We’ll discuss the top Ad Spy tools and the advantages of using them in this article.

What Are Ad Spy Tools?

A service that makes it easier to monitor rivals’ advertising operations is called a spy tool. These technologies operate as databases that hold details about every advertisement that has ever been released or is presently running on particular traffic sources, such as Facebook, push notifications, or pop-up ads.

First and foremost, a spy tool serves as a comprehensive collection of various types of ads. These tools are categorized based on the type of traffic they focus on. For instance, there are specific spy tools dedicated to Facebook ads, while others specialize in monitoring push notifications.

There are also more versatile spy tools available that encompass multiple ad formats within a single platform. Take Agenic Control, for example, which allows users to analyze ads both from Meta and Google, together with content from Instagram and TikTok, without having to switch around multiple tools.

Free spy tools typically offer access to the advertisement itself and its corresponding landing page. The range of available filters in free tools is usually limited to country, ad network, and occasionally keywords. Nonetheless, this option can be advantageous for beginners.

Paid tools offer an expanded toolkit, providing users with more comprehensive information and opportunities. Consequently, it is not surprising that the most effective ad spy tools for internet marketers are typically paid services.

Ad Spy tools usually have a ton of filters, so you’d easily reach the desired data. The most common ones are:

• Country
• Affiliate Program
• Advertising network
• Duration of the advertising campaign
• Vertical
• Amount of traffic received
• Language of a creative/landing page
• URL
• Keywords
• Device
• Active and inactive ads
• Operating system
• Tracker

What Are The Benefits of Using Spy Tools?

The ease of downloading pre-made landing pages and creatives for an instant campaign launch is provided by spy tools. On closer inspection, though, there may be no guarantee regarding this practice’s profitability.

First, you may evaluate the campaign’s profitability by confirming that it hasn’t been disabled and by looking at its duration. Certain espionage instruments furthermore furnish data regarding the traffic produced by the initiative. All of the data, nevertheless, originates from publically accessible sources. It isn’t always very accurate as a result.

However, let us examine the matter of identical creatives or banners from the target audience’s point of view. People who see the same advertisement over and over again sometimes become “banner blind,” meaning they completely ignore the ad.

It might not work well to rely just on pre-made landing pages and creatives from spy tools. Most likely, a lot of users have already seen them and disregarded them. It is advised to look for creative solutions and apply the concepts in a way that is particular to you.

What steps can affiliate marketers take to solve this issue? They may take ideas from intelligence services, but they will just slightly alter them. This is true for landing pages as well as creatives. Use comparable images, but change the text a little. Preventing the use of duplicate content is crucial.

The benefits of using an ad spy tool if you are running ads to promote affiliate marketing programs include the following:

• Conduct market research on target audience data points – best geographical locations, ad formats, call to action, etc.
• Establish, through competitive analysis of your competitors, why their ads are successful with the target audience.
• Gain inspiration on how to improve your ad creative/copy.
• Get an inside look at your competitor’s marketing campaigns, and learn what works for them.
• Obtain tips on improving your landing pages and better promote the product or service as an affiliate.
• Design a more attractive and higher-converting ad copy.
• Reduce your split testing efforts and advertising expenditure.
• Improve your ROI on your ad spend by running more profitable ad campaigns.
• Help take the guesswork out of the equation. 
• Discover insights that help you make more informed ad campaign decisions.
• Obtain a better understanding of what works best for your target audience and save time testing ad creatives.

Features to Look for in Your Spy Tool

The features you need will depend on your advertising goals and objectives. However, here are some features to look for when evaluating ad spy tools that might reduce your risk and increase your earnings.

• Ads database

You want the ad spy tool you use to have a comprehensive ads database. The larger the database, the more data you have to help you understand and surpass your competitors.

• Geographic location

Advertising in the United States typically costs more than most other countries, while affiliate commissions remain the same. It might be worthwhile to consider using a spy tool to gain insight into other countries besides the U.S. Ensure the one you select covers your chosen country. 

• Price

Advertising affiliate offers can be costly. Getting an acceptable ROI means you have to keep your costs under control. Subscribing to the most expensive ad spy tool might not necessarily give you the best ROI.  

Best Affiliate Marketing Spy Tools

Certain platforms offer complimentary information about the advertisements they are displaying. For instance, Meta Ad Library promotes advertising transparency by providing a thorough, searchable archive of all advertisements from Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Audience Network, and other Meta platforms.

You can look for ads in the Ad Library by category, advertiser, location, or keyword. Advertisements can also be filtered by platform, media type (pictures, memes, images and memes, videos, and no image or video), and state (active and inactive, active advertisements, or inactive ads).

Read Also: What Are Some Ways That Advertisers Can Use Native Advertising to Promote Products?

Nevertheless, the ability to enter a date range to find long-running adverts may be the most useful feature. It gives you a decent idea of how effective an advertisement is. An advertisement is probably successful if it has been running for weeks or months, as advertisers would not normally waste money on commercials that do not provide a favorable return on investment.

However, you’ll need a professional tool to assist you in drawing ideas from the most effective advertising campaigns if you want to become a successful media-buying affiliate.

The most widely used affiliate marketing instruments for “spying” on rival businesses are:

1. BigSpy

Founded in 2018 by Alex Morris, BigSpy has grown to one of the most popular ad spy tools, with over 520,000 customers.

BigSpy offers three paid plans, namely:

• Basic: $9/month
• Pro: $99/month or $79/month (billed 6-monthly) or $69/month (billed annually)
• VIP Enterprise: $3,600+/year 

The main differences between the plans are:

	Basic Plan	Pro Plan	VIP Enterprise Plan
Platforms:	Facebook and Instagram	Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and Yahoo	Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Yahoo, AdMob, YouTube, TikTok, and Unity
Queries:	20 per day	Unlimited	Unlimited
Track Ads:	25 per day	250 per day	Unlimited
Download:	25 per day	250 per day	Unlimited
Search Filtering:	–	Unlimited	Unlimited
Featured Ads:	–	Limited	Unlimited
Ad Ideas:	–	Limited	Unlimited

According to BigSpy, “all products and services offered by BigSpy and its business units are non-tangible and irrevocable, so we do not issue refunds once the order is completed and delivered.”

However, they state that users are entitled to receive a full refund within 24 hours of the first payment – the first payment is the initial payment, excluding renewals, upgrades, or repurchases. But, they require “thorough and supported” reasons for the refund and do not guarantee refunds for lack of usage or dissatisfaction.

They mention on their pricing page that 6-month and 12-month Pro plan subscriptions come with a 7-day money-back guarantee, but no mention of this appears on their refund policy page.

With a massive ad database covering some of the top advertising platforms in 46+ countries, BigSpy offers its customers a lot of value. And considering it has free and competitively-priced paid plans, it’s easy to understand why it’s such a popular ad spy tool.

However, describing it as the “#1 FREE ADSPY TOOL” when their free plan only offers you five queries and the ability to save 20 Facebook ads daily is a bit misleading. And to have access to all the platforms will set you back $3,600+ per year, which is anything but cheap.

In addition, they do not offer a free trial or a clear and uniform refund policy. And some of the content on their website is outdated. For example, their FAQ page states they currently cover seven platforms instead of 9+ (per their homepage).

Furthermore, I find it surprising that they do not have a Contact Us page on their site. And at the time of writing this, the chat button on their website says, “support is currently offline.”

Despite the above observations, which do not affect the quality of their software, their entry-level plan for Facebook and Instagram only costs $9/month. Although it does not include search filtering (only available from their Pro plan), it might be a good starting point for new affiliate marketers.

2. PowerAdspy

PowerAdspy may not be the largest or most popular ad spy tool on our list, but as a tool created by affiliates for affiliates, it is one of the best spy tools for affiliate marketers.

It allows you to spy on your competitors’ ads across nine platforms (depending on the plan you subscribe to), namely Facebook, Instagram, Google Ads, YouTube, Reddit, Quora, Native ads, GDN (Google Display Network), and Pinterest.

PowerAdspy offers six paid plans, namely:

• Basic: $49/month – Facebook and Pinterest
• Standard: $99/month – Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest
• Premium: $149/month – Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest
• Platinum: $249/month – Facebook, Instagram, Google Ads, YouTube, and Pinterest
• Titanium: $299/month – Facebook, Instagram, Google Ads, YouTube, Native ads, and Pinterest
• Palladium: $349/month – Facebook, Instagram, Google Ads, YouTube, Native ads, Reddit, Quora, GDN (Google Display Network), and Pinterest

All plans include the following features:

• Keyword search
• Sort by likes, comments, shares, newest and longest-running ads
• Data interval search
• Bookmarks

All plans, except the Basic plan, include the following features:

• Call to action
• Advertiser Search
• Ad type filter
• Ad placement filter
• Gender wise filter
• Audience age
• Ad insight

Free Trial: Yes

The free trial gives you access to all nine platforms for ten days. However, it is limited to 100 searches / 1,000 ads

PowerAdspy was created by affiliates for affiliates, making it a serious contender for the best ad spy tool for affiliate marketing. It is amusing how many software companies use hype and even false or misleading claims to sell their products or services. For example, PowerAdspy claims they have the world’s largest ads inventory.

However, BigSpy has a database of over 1 billion ads, whereas PowerAdspy only lists 110+ million ads. Having said that, PowerAdspy remains a good tool for affiliates who want to spy on their competitor’s social media ad strategies.

What we like about PowerAdspy is their free trial that gives you access to all nine platforms and features for ten days. It might be limited to 100 searches / 1,000 ads, but it allows you to thoroughly test the tool before subscribing to a paid plan.

3. AdPlexity

AdPlexity was founded in 2008, making it one of the oldest ad spy tools. And it is geared toward affiliate marketers. Unlike spy tools focusing on specific platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, AdPlexity offers data and market intelligence on advertising campaigns; the platform is of secondary importance.

AdPlexity offers seven products, namely:

Mobile – $199/month or $1,990/year (paid annually)

Track your competitor’s most profitable mobile ad campaigns.

Features include:

• Track ad campaigns running in over 75 countries.
• Find lucrative campaigns on mobile popup traffic sources.
• Analyze and evaluate ads on thousands of Android apps.
• Instantly download landing pages.
• Discover hidden campaigns on mobile carrier traffic (120+ carriers supported).
• Get real-time insight on ad campaigns running on mobile ad exchanges.
• Find successful ad campaigns and filter by keyword, advertiser, publisher, and affiliate network.
• Analyze every component of an ad campaign, including ad trends, devices targeted, traffic sources, and publishers.  

Find successful mobile campaigns on:

• 5 Popup ad networks – AdCash, PropellerAds, PopAds, PopCash, and Zeropark.
• 5 Android In-App ad networks – StartApp, InMobi, MillennialMedia, Airpush, and Leadbolt.
• 15 Mobile display web ad exchanges, including Avazu, Smaato, Mobfox, Buzzcity, and AppNexus.

Desktop – $199/month or $1,990/year (paid annually)

Track your competitor’s most profitable desktop ad campaigns.

Features include:

• Track ad campaigns running in over 75 countries.
• Find profitable campaigns on desktop popup traffic sources.
• Download all landing pages with one click.
• Find ads promoting affiliate offers from 100 affiliate networks with a single click.
• Get real-time insight on ad campaigns running on desktop ad exchanges.
• Find successful ad campaigns and filter by keyword, advertiser, publisher, and affiliate network.
• Analyze every component of an ad campaign, including ad trends, devices targeted, traffic sources, and publishers.  

Find successful desktop campaigns on:

• 4 Popup ad networks – AdCash, PropellerAds, PopAds, and PopCash.
• 15 Desktop display ad exchanges, including Google, AppNexus, OpenX, Rubicon, SiteScout, and AdForm.

Native – $249/month or $2,490/year (paid annually)

Track your competitor’s most profitable ad campaigns on native traffic sources.

Features include:

• Analyze native ad campaigns running in over 32 countries.
• Discover profitable campaigns on 6 of the most popular native ad traffic sources.
• Download all landing pages with one click.
• Find ads promoting affiliate offers from 100 affiliate networks.
• Find ad campaigns targeting all popular devices, including Windows PC, Mac, iPhone, Android Phones, iPad & Android Tablets.
• Find successful ad campaigns and filter by keyword, advertiser, publisher, and affiliate network.
• Analyze every component of an ad campaign, including ad trends, devices targeted, traffic sources, and publishers.  

Find successful native campaigns on:

• 6 Native ad networks – RevContent, Mgid, Yahoo Gemini, Taboola, Adblade, and Outbrain. (AdPlexity still mentions Content.ad on their website even though it’s no longer active)
• All major devices and browsers. 

Push – $149/month or $1,490/year (paid annually)

Track your competitor’s most profitable ad campaigns on push traffic sources.

Features include:

• See ad campaigns in over 80 countries.
• Discover profitable campaigns on 10+ push traffic sources.
• Download all landing pages with one click.
• Find hidden ad campaigns running exclusively on mobile carrier traffic (90+ carriers supported).
• Find ads promoting affiliate offers from 100 affiliate networks.
• Find successful ad campaigns and filter by keyword, advertiser, publisher, and affiliate network.
• Analyze every component of an ad campaign, including ad trends, devices targeted, traffic sources, and publishers.
• Find successful campaigns on 10+ push ad networks, including Mgid, PropellerAds, DatsPush, and Leo.Cash.

eCommerce – $199/month or $1,990/year (paid annually)

This product does not apply to affiliate marketing. It involves keeping track of your competitors’ most profitable eCommerce products and stores and searching for products.

Carriers – $149 per 500 MB data transfer

This product allows you to browse your mobile campaigns in foreign locations with REAL 3G/LTE proxies from 80+ mobile carriers in 30+ countries.

Enterprise – Custom price based on requirements

This product is available if you require:

• Additional data insights in countries or for traffic sources not covered in standard subscriptions.
• Automatic alerts or custom reports based on collected data.

AdPlexity is a good option for experienced affiliate marketers looking to expand their ad campaigns beyond platforms like Facebook and Instagram.

New affiliate marketers might find their plans expensive compared to other ad spy tools. For example, subscribing to both their mobile and desktop plans will set you back $398 per month, which is costly if you’re a beginner. And then you haven’t even spent a single dollar on ads!