Intro to Facebook Ads Spy Tools
We get a bunch of questions from new affiliates asking which Facebook Ads Spy Tools are killing it in their niche and how they can get high converting social traffic to their offers at a low cost per click.
If there’s one topic that comes up time and again, it’s the role these tools play in internet marketing.
What are Facebook Ads Spy Tools used for, how can they help to identify new opportunities in your niche and ultimately how can they assist you in creating winning campaigns for your offers?
Let’s start by saying that Facebook Ads have a long history.
They started out on November 6, 2007, and have since grown into an advertising powerhouse for brands and online marketers.
During that time there have been too many changes to mention, and you can now choose from numerous types of campaign objectives, targeting options, audiences, placements, and formats when creating your campaigns.
All of this makes Facebook Ads a highly sought after and competitive landscape for merchants and affiliates, as they are well aware of the revenue potential the platform can deliver to their business.
While this may mean that Facebook is no longer the cheapest source of traffic that you can buy, it’s still the apple in the eye of many CPA affiliates, due to its precise targeting options and insanely high ROI.
That’s not to say that you can’t have your cake and eat it!
By creating a well-structured campaign that’s fully optimized for your offers, you can still pick up traffic from as low as $0.01 CPC, but it’s gonna take a fair bit of work on your part to find the sweet spot that results in high earnings per click (EPC) and conversion rates (CR) for your campaign.
There’s a couple of ways you can go about this.
- You can set aside a budget of let’s say $1,000 per ad group per campaign and test every available combination of campaign objective, targeting options, creatives, ad copy and placements you can find to see what’s working in your niche.
- You can take the smart route and use Facebook Ads Spy Tools to save yourself unlimited time and money.
This will ultimately give you the ad intelligence you need to borrow ideas that you can apply to your own offers and allow you to set up your own KPIs for your campaigns.
Sound good?
Great!
So let’s take a look at what Facebook Ad Spy Tools are and find out just what these bad boys can do!
Read more about Ad Spy Tools:
What are Facebook Ads Spy Tools?
There’s a common misconception when it comes to Facebook Ad Spy Tools.
Wanna know what that is?
It’s the belief that you can simply copy and paste your competitor’s campaigns and make a quick buck.
While this may work for a couple of days, it’s really not gonna help you get ahead in the long run.
The reason why?
You can’t simply take someone else’s message word-for-word and expect it to work in your own campaigns.
At best, you may sucker in a couple of people but at worst you run the risk of sounding inauthentic and by adding to the noise.
By doing this you’re more likely to turn people off than increase sales to whatever it is you’re trying to promote.
Facebook Ad Spy Tools are designed to show you exactly what your competitors are doing and how they are using social ads successfully in their business.
They’ll show you everything from the creatives used, to the ad copy used to the targeting options and audience lists that are working for their business.
The important part to realize is that you’re not using these tools to simply copy verbatim your competitor’s business model from start to finish.
But you can use them to replicate your competitor’s success and help you stand out as the best option for your target audience.
It’s about finding your own unique message and delivering that message in a way that resonates with your target audience in a style that sets you apart from your competitors.
Why simply copy a competitor’s campaign when you can learn the formula to creating your own success?
This is the real power of Facebook Ads Spy Tools and one you need to use wisely if you wanna eventually make it into the big league!
Advantages of Using Facebook Ads Spy Tools
Facebook Ad Spy Tools will help you to gain perspective over the whole advertising landscape and give you a new level of understanding and awareness about what is going on, right down to the granular level.
You can even follow your competitors’ campaigns to discover which landing pages they are using in which GEOs, what their sales page copy looks like and even assess the quality of their products and customer service.
In short, they give you the advantage to analyze every aspect of your competitors’ strategy, so you can find your own comparable strategy and beat them at their own game.
You can borrow ideas, see what’s working long term and what’s trending right now, all of which can be used to create your own unique campaigns that establish your own unique position within the marketplace.
This ability to reverse engineer competitor campaigns is a shortcut to success and will even help you to discover new offers and design opportunities you may not have thought of yourself.
You’ll be able to study what kind of content your competition is posting, what CTA’s and links are being used and how well the audience engages with different kinds of content on the ad.
All of this gives you an incredible advantage in your own campaigns.
Beyond Spy Tools
Don’t be afraid to go deeper down the rabbit hole when using this strategy!
Sign up to your competitors’ lists, register with their CPA offers and see exactly what’s going on behind the scenes.
In many ways, Facebook Ads Spy Tools are like a gateway into a whole new world of discovery but don’t expect them to do everything for you!
It’s still up to you as an internet marketer to find your own unique angles through in-depth research that will set you apart from the crowd.
There’s one last thing before we move on to look at Facebook ad intelligence spy tools.
And that’s this…
Think of social ads as a long-term game and not as trying to find a shortcut to overnight success.
As with all things, you get out what you put in, and while these tools can be an invaluable source of data to you, so don’t get to rely on them to do all the work for you.
List of the Best Facebook Ad Spy Tools
Ready to know what are the best Facebook Ads Spy Tools on the internet?
So let’s jump into the best free and paid on the market right now.
1. PowerAdSpy
PowerAdSpy is social ads spy tool beast that gives you a detailed breakdown of each creative, along with landing page URL, date last seen, social engagement and targeting options.
This tool is not only powerful for Facebook Ads but it also gives you the possibility to spy on:
- Google Ads
- Google Display
- YouTube
- Quora
- Native Ads
It’s a great resource for any marketer who wants to look beyond the creative and ad copy.
You can search ads by keyword, domain and advertiser and sort by the newest ad, longest-running ad, and social engagements stats, as well as targeting option and landing page properties, and much more.
Are you still not sure about it?
What we love: The filters are extremely useful for refining the search parameters and getting which are super relevant to your campaign. It makes finding and analyzing sales funnels incredibly easy and we love the call-to-action filter, which gives great insight into what actions advertisers are asking of users.
What we don’t like: The free version is limited in its use.
Price:
PowerAdSpy is giving a 10% lifetime discount to Mobidea Academy readers! Just make sure you use the promo code mobidea10.
2. Dropispy
If you’re in the dropshipping business, then you know how important it is to stay ahead of your competition. Dropispy is a new tool that lets you see how your competitors are promoting their e-commerce products.
This can be incredibly valuable information, as it can help you adjust your own marketing strategy to become more effective.
Dropispy is, in fact, a service provided by AdSpy. This one, though, is tailored towards dropshippers and e-commerce business owners.
It provides an intimate look at your competitor’s dropshipping business, including what products they are selling, how they are pricing their products, and what kind of Facebook promotions they are running.
The information that Dropispy provides is critical for developing and adjusting your own dropshipping strategy and staying ahead of the competition.
This Facebook Ads Spy Tool has a database of millions of ads, with more than 20 thousand new ads added each day. It also provides you with a list of winning products, new ideas, and exciting niches.
What we love: DropISpy has unique features tailored toward dropshippers. For instance, it provides a list of the top dropshipping stores online (called Shop Spy), allowing you to check their websites and ads. You’ll even see their best-performing products and duplicate them in your own store!
What we don’t like: The biggest issue we have is that it doesn’t have the option to search ads based on comments or based on the texts on the landing pages. You can find this feature in AdSpy, though, which is a wonder why they omitted this option in Dropispy.
Overall, Dropispy is an incredibly powerful Facebook Ads spy tool that should be in every dropshipper’s arsenal.
Price: It has three pricing plans – Free, Premium, and Business. The free version has limited features, while the paid ones have all features open and start at €29.90 a month.
3. Anstrex
Anstrex is an incredibly versatile multi-platform competitive intelligence tool that provides valuable insights into various advertising channels.
With the ability to spy on pop ads, push ads, native ads, TikTok In-Stream ads, and, notably, Facebook Ads, Anstrex offers a comprehensive approach to understanding your competition.
What we love: In particular, Anstrex’s Facebook Ads spy tool is specifically designed to cater to the needs of dropshipping businesses; hence it is placed within the Dropship app.
If you are involved in the e-commerce industry, Anstrex’s Dropship feature is tailor-made to empower your business with the competitive advantage it needs to thrive in the market.
To use it, head over to the Viral Products Tool, which offers extensive insights into Meta (formerly Facebook) Ads.
It distinguishes itself from other tools by not only providing data on how businesses are advertising their products but also by mining information about various products directly from suppliers and real dropshipping stores.
It not only shows the actual ads, but is designed to provide insights into how advertisers are promoting products and the performance of these ads based on user engagement.
Upon selecting a product, the tool provides comprehensive details, including:
- The cost of the product
- Potential profit margins (if sold at the same price as competitors)
- The type of media used in the ad (video or image) on Meta
- The popularity of the ad (based on likes, comments, shares)
- Details about the advertiser’s Meta page and retail store (including links)
- Information about the supplier and their pricing (including links to the supplier page)
Moreover, the tool allows you to download the media used in the advertisement, allowing you to repurpose it for your own promotions.
With Anstrex, you have everything you need for successful e-commerce advertising on Meta at your fingertips.
What we don’t love: While Anstrex offers rich and detailed insights for e-commerce advertisement, it disappointingly focuses solely on this sector. This means that other verticals are entirely overlooked.
For businesses or marketers interested in sectors beyond e-commerce, this tool might prove insufficient.
Confining to only e-commerce-related ads restricts the versatility and broad usability of the tool, potentially limiting its appeal to a wider user base. We hope future updates may address this issue to make Anstrex a truly comprehensive ad-spying tool.
Price:
While the Anstrex Dropship App has a free plan, the only plan that includes the Viral Product Research Tool is the Pro Dropshippers Plan, which is worth $49.99 per month per store (if you have an e-commerce store you want to link for Store Management).
4. AdSpy
AdSpy is a powerful ad intelligence platform that you can use to find and study competitors’ campaigns in your niche.
It boasts 80M+ ads in 88 different languages across 198 countries from 13M+ advertisers, making it a powerhouse of a database.
It also comes with some excellent search filters, which allow you to target your competitors’ campaigns with uncanny precision.
Use it to discover Facebook and Instagram ads and apply the advanced filters to your search to find ad text, comments, and landing page URL, along with ad types, daily likes and much more besides.
What we love: This tool is great for affiliates, as it allows you to search by affiliate network, as well as affiliate ID or offer ID and makes it easy to spy on your competitors’ sales funnels.
What we don’t like: While the features of the platform are well thought out, it lacks some of the more advanced features of other tools on this list, but the advanced search results and ease of use more than makes up for this.
Price: $149/month
5. SocialAdSpyder
Have you ever wanted an inside look at the marketing strategies of top brands? It’s like going behind enemy lines to get an edge over the competition and do some competitive analysis. This is where SocialAdSpyder comes in.
With this innovative social media ad spy tool, you’re able to spy on competitors’ ads, and SocialAdSpyder has more than 2 million of these in its database. Even if this tool has just recently opened its doors — from being in Beta mode to becoming a full-pledged subscription-based tool — it is not one to be taken lightly.
With features that make competitor analysis a breeze, this comprehensive ads scraper painlessly sorts through millions of Facebook ads and identifies them according to the 15 most common affiliate offer verticals — think gambling, BizOpps, crypto-currency, health, trading stocks, sweepstakes — you name it! This makes it immeasurably easier for affiliate marketers to make informed decisions without endless manual research.
You can also say goodbye to hours of hard work finding the perfect e-commerce ads. SocialAdSpyder’s one-click e-commerce ads feature offers a quick and easy solution, allowing you to identify potential dropshipping products by online stores being run in major players like Shopify, Magento, BigCommerce, ClickFunnels, and more.
What We Love: SocialAdSpyder offers a comprehensive suite of advanced search options so that you can find the perfect ad for your campaign. With its filters, you can hone in on a specific ad category, language, country, affiliate vertical, or type.
And if that wasn’t enough, this effective tool also lets you search using full keywords and leverage boolean operations for maximum efficiency.
What We Don’t Like: Only an image of the landing page can be downloaded — it cannot be ripped. It does, however, provide the link to the landing page so you can do the ripping all by yourself.
Price: Two plans are available: Professional Plan ($49.99 per month) and Premium Plan ($59.99). The best plan for affiliates is the Premium Plan since it allows you to use the affiliate ads filter.
If you’re interested in trying it out, don’t forget to use Mobidea’s exclusive code to get a discount. Visit our Social Ad Spyder offer page for more information.
6. AdFlex
AdFlex’s Facebook Spy Tool may be one of the newest spy tools available today but it does not trail behind when it comes to the number of ads in its database and how comprehensive it can be.
AdFlex.io has millions of active Facebook ads in its database which is updated in real-time. That means that you will always have access to the most up-to-date information on what is happening with your competitors’ Facebook Ads.
You’ll also appreciate that their search interface is very user-friendly and easy to navigate. So, if you’re looking for a spy tool that can give you an edge over your competition, be sure to check out AdFlex’s Facebook Spy Tool.
What We Love
AdFlex’s Facebook Spy Tool has a database of over 10 million ads from over 80 countries and provides users with detailed information about each ad, such as the ad format, the targeting audience, the ad spend, the number of times AdFlex saw this ad, and so much more.
Searching for the right ad is so much easier with the multiple filter options available. You can limit the ads based on targeting information (age, location, interests, etc.), the type of ads, their placement, how long it has been active, the actual business page promoting it, and more.
In addition, the AdFlex.io Facebook Spy Tool also allows users to see how successful an ad campaign is performing by tracking its engagement rate (number of views, comments, shares, and reactions) and reach.
What We Don’t Like
There is an option to download landing pages, and sometimes it works, other times, it doesn’t.
Price
Basic Plan – free for up to 300 ads and 30 ad details
Pro Plan – $99 per month for up to 3 devices, with a $1 free trial for 3 days
7. SocialPeta
SocialPeta has a huge database of ads, currently at over 200M+ creatives across many different industries – including Gaming Apps, Non-Gaming Apps, Web (eCommerce & Brands), countries and ad networks.
There are also over 100,000 playable ads which help you find trending creatives in seconds.
You’ll find some impressive ad intelligence stats, including downloads and revenues for up to 60 days along with regional data for countries.
What we love: Brand analysis is easy with SocialPeta, and you can uncover top brands and analyze their influence across social media channels. You’ll even get app store analysis for over 500,000 apps and trending keywords and bidding statistics for campaigns.
What we don’t like: SocialPeta is excellent for tracking apps and excels at gaming related content but there may be better tools if you need a broader perspective across all of your niches.
Price: Starts at $59/month
8. ConnectExplore
ConnectExplore is the brainchild Wilco De Krej, a Facebook Ads marketer with a unique approach to creating successful Facebook ad campaigns.
Perhaps one of the most remarkable things about ConnectExplore is that it doesn’t advocate copying your competitors’ campaigns.
The focus is instead on a package which includes a number of solutions that work together to automate and optimize your Facebook ad campaigns.
The theory is simple: If everyone is targeting the same audience lists, at some stage that audience list will become saturated and ineffective at producing results.
ConnectExplore is essentially a Facebook interest targeting tool which helps uncover new audience opportunities and then rates these for profitability, to help you achieve a better ROI on your Facebook ad campaigns.
Wilco is also a very active marketer himself, and the platform is well matched to CPA marketers and affiliates.
What we love: It’s refreshing to see a new approach to working with Facebook Ads that uncover new opportunities from looking at your competitor ad campaigns. At the heart of the software is the ability to find untapped audience potential and a layering feature which helps you target motivated audiences who exist in multiple interest sets.
What we don’t like: There’s a lot of bold claims on the website of ROI increase and profitability from using this software, and while they are supported with authentic reviews, there’s no guarantee that you will see the same benefits using this system.
You will also need to connect to ConnectSuite to gain the maximum potential from the system, meaning that you could end up paying more than you bargained for.
Price: One-time payment of $197 (Includes ConnectSuite 30-Day Free Trial)
List of the Best Free Facebook Ad Spy Tools
1. Facebook
Yep, that’s right.
The best free Facebook Ads Spy Tool is Facebook itself!
From June 2018, You may have noticed a new section on your Facebook pages which was included as a response to rising pressure to place greater transparency on Facebook ads and pages.
This is fantastic news for online marketers, as you can now see what ad pages on Facebook are running directly from the page itself.
Those are especially good news for new affiliates and those who may be short on funds for premium Facebook ad intelligence spy tools.
So just what can you see with this?
Well, simply go to the Facebook page of a competitor or advertiser and click on the left-hand menu section titled ‘Info and ads’.
Depending on the advertiser you’ll be able to sort the results by which country the ads are running in and then scroll down to see all the available ads for that advertiser.
What we love: This is a great entry point to spy on your competitors’ ads. It lets you see what ads are working right now and helps you to identify which hooks and CTAs advertisers are using in your niche.
What we don’t like: As a starting point it’s all well and good, but we can’t view any historical data to see how long ads have been running. So it’s impossible to know which ads are the most successful of the group. We also can’t see which audience targeting has been used for ads, so it’s only really useful for researching creatives, ad copy, and CTAs.
That said, we still think it’s worth its weight in gold and is a great entry point for new affiliates.
Price: Free
2. BigSpy
If you’re just starting out or don’t want to have the budget to invest in competitive intelligence research tools, BigSpy could be the tool for you!
While it may not be quite as polished as some of the premium tools on this list, it’s well worth its weight in gold.
Honestly, while many of the tools on this list could be said to be more feature-rich, you can find a good part of the information you need with BigSpy.
You can search by marketing objectives and CTA, plus find the top and trending creatives in your market.
So if you’re only running a handful of campaigns and don’t need all the bells and whistles offered by the premium platforms on this list, make sure to give BigSpy a try.
What we love: Favorite the creative or advertiser from the list of search results and go add them to your collection to get free updates when a new campaign is run from that advertiser.
What we don’t like: For a free tool, BigSpy is certainly one to watch, but we’d like to see more audience and targeting statistics and clicking a creative will redirect you to the ad campaign and Facebook. So you still have to carry out some independent research to find out everything you need to know about the competitor’s campaign.
Price: Free
3. AdEspresso
AdEspresso is a premium tool that allows you to create and manage your Facebook ad campaigns all from one place.
It comes with a bunch of useful features to help marketers with their ad campaigns from testing creatives to budget management, but the one we’re most interested in for this post is the AdEspresso ad gallery.
This is a free list of curated ads from different niches which show you just how the pros are creating their campaigns.
It’s broken down into different sections for each Facebook ad format and has insights into what’s good about the ad and why this particular campaign is working for the advertiser.
It’s a great place to form the basis of your research but if you really wanna drill down into the placements and objectives you’ll need to get a paid account.
This will give you access to over 25,000 ad examples and is super useful for spotting opportunities in your market.
What we love: AdEspresso is a great place to find inspiration for your own campaigns and delve into what’s working across many different markets. You can quickly see what messaging is prevalent and what style of ads are working in your niche.
What we don’t like: The free tool is limited to only the curated list of Facebook ad examples, and while this is useful to get inspired it lacks some of the critical information, such as audience lists and targeting, that you may want to use in your own campaigns.
Price: Free guides and ad examples.
4. Swipe-Worthy
If you wanna start collecting your competitor ads and find inspiration for creating your own campaigns, look no further than Swipe-Worthy.
Rather than a tool that is used to steal competitor campaigns, Swipe-Worthy chooses instead to break down the dynamic elements of an ad to assess why it’s working.
It’s a great place for teaching marketers the value of good ad copy and offers some astute insights into why a particular ad set is working in that niche.
You’ll learn a lot about everything from writing effective ad copy to split testing and how to break down a campaign into its elements to analyze the message and intent behind the ad.
What we love: Swipe-Worthy isn’t just about showing off cool designs and catchy slogans. It keeps the focus squarely on buyer psychology and campaign strategy that will get your juices flowing to create your own winning campaigns.
What we don’t like: The database is fairly limited in the number of search results and you won’t necessarily get the latest trends in your niche or find which ads your competitors are using right now.
Price: Free
Summary
Facebook Ad Spy Tools should form an important part of the strategy of every online marketer if you’re serious about getting ahead in the business.
Just remember, there is no perfect tool.
Even with every tool on this list, you won’t capture every ad created by your competition.
What you can do is find and analyze competitor campaigns to find out what’s working in your niche, and perhaps more importantly, gain insight into why that particular ad is working over something else.
Also, you don’t need to limit yourself to researching competitors in your niche.
Remember, you’re not trying to copy campaigns but get inspiration for your own creative and find your own unique position in the market.
Sometimes looking at the big players in other markets can open your eyes to a totally new way of doing things.
So don’t be afraid of taking pointers from top marketers and brands that you can incorporate into your own campaigns.
What it boils down to is translating the message into a format that works for your audience.
You don’t even need to spend a huge amount doing this, as many of the free tools on this list will give you enough inspiration to start making bank.
Then, later on, when you’re managing multiple campaigns of your own for clients you may wanna look at taking the leap to one of the paid tools.
Another point to remember is that by using Facebook Ad Spy Tools you’re not trying to find a way to set and forget your own campaigns.
You still need to test what’s working in your own account and keep split testing and optimizing your message and targeting to find the winners.
Wanna know more about how to set up your Facebook ad account? Head over to our article on xxx and find out how to set up your Facebook campaign right away to start making bank right now!
Ultimately, you wanna use these competitive ad intelligence tools so you can do more of what works and turn that into a scalable business model.
Once you know how much you need to spend to make a conversion and how well your audience segments convert for your offers, you’ll be able to increase your spending while maintaining a positive ROI.
You’ll also be able to drop what isn’t working, so you can focus on the creatives and targeting options that are making you profit.
By doing this you can direct more of your ad spending to the highest performing ad sets and drop the low performing ones from your campaigns.
Facebook Ads can work in any niche, but as with any other traffic source, you need to track your results and adjust your options accordingly.
Spend a lot of time testing your audience lists and interests, as this is a key area that many marketers overlook, often with disastrous consequences.
Try to be creative in your approach and use the data from what everyone else is doing to come up with your own unique twist on your campaigns.
Use this approach, combined with the tools on this list, and you’ll be a Facebook Ads pro in no time at all!
See also:
- Best Facebook Ads Courses and Certifications
- How to Write Clickable Facebook Ads Headlines
- How to Create a Facebook Ads Campaign
- CPA on Facebook Ads: Definitive Guide for Beginners
- Best TikTok Ads Spy Tools
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