Learn B2B SaaS Marketing

20 Must-Have B2B SaaS PPC Tools for Competitive Analysis & Spying

by 

Lauren O'Bryan

Last updated: April 22nd, 2024

Staying ahead in the competitive B2B SaaS market demands quick, informed actions, especially when it comes to pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.

Understanding your competitors’ strategies is key to optimizing your own campaigns. Fortunately, there’s a suite of powerful PPC spying tools designed to give you this competitive edge. But with so many options, which ones truly deliver the insights you need?

In this article, we’ll give you an overview of the 20 B2B SaaS PPC tools for competitive analysis and spying, specifically tailored for PPC professionals like you.

These tools are not just about keeping an eye on your rivals; they’re about leveraging data to refine your strategy and stay one step ahead, so let’s see what they are.

Semrush

Semrush has a range of tools that identify your competition and provide detailed insights into your competitors and their marketing strategies.

With Semrush, you can:

• Compare your website traffic against your competitors
• Identify top keywords your competitors rank highly for
• Find keyword gaps that you can use to your advantage
• Analyze your competitors’ ads and social media engagement levels
• Identify backlinking opportunities

Semrush is an all-in-one platform for marketers, so you don’t need to seek additional features and functionality elsewhere. You can even get limited access for free. With a free account, you can make up to 10 analytics requests per day and manage just one project, which is enough to test it out. A paid account starts at $129.95/month.

Spyfu

Spyfu is a competitive PPC analysis and spying tool that’ll help you understand what your competitors are doing and what marketing tactics they’re using.

The features included will enable you to:

• Precisely identify the PPC keywords used by your competition
• Track changes to competitor PPC campaigns and ad spend
• Understand the keyword ranking history of any webpage
• Identify backlinks and influencers using the same target keywords you can connect with
• Track and monitor ranking changes of all websites in your niche

To use Spyfu, you’ll have to commit to a subscription. Payment plans start from $39/month. However, this first subscription level has limitations on the number of search results and the year’s worth of historical data it will dig through. For unlimited search results, you’ll have to upgrade to $79/month.

Serpstat

Serpstat is another great tool for competitive PPC analysis and developing content marketing strategies. They promote themselves as a fast solution, giving you the ability to speed up marketing tasks and achieve your goals.

With Serpstart, you can:

• Analyze websites with an emphasis on SEO and PPC
• Complete an in-depth analysis of competitor’s backlinks, ads, and keywords
• Analyze data in batches rather than individually, which will save you time
• Find keyword gaps
• Identify backlinks

Beyond the 7-day free trial, you’ll have to pay for a subscription to use Serpstat. The pricing plans start from $59/month if paid on a month-by-month basis, alternatively, you’ll get a discount if you pay the entire annual sum upfront.

SE Ranking

SE Ranking is another all-in-one platform that gives you all the tools to manage the entire marketing process from lead generation to reporting. It has a simple and clear dashboard for monitoring data in real-time and includes the use of AI-powered algorithms.

The featured tools give you the ability to:

• Get an all-encompassing picture of the organic and paid traffic your competition attracts
• Compare competitor keywords to yours and find the low-hanging fruits
• Analyze competitor ad history and identify their best performing ads
• Get backlink insights
• Check keyword rankings across different search engines

There’s no free access with SE Ranking, only a free trial. If you want to get the most out of this tool, pricing plans start from $55/month if paid monthly. As the plans increase in price, the limitations on your account decrease – for example, if you upgrade to the Pro plan for an extra $54/month, you can work with unlimited projects as opposed to a limit of ten.

SimilarWeb

SimilarWeb is a more specialized tool that focuses solely on providing an analytical breakdown of any given URL address. These reports will show you website traffic, search engine ranking, and PPC results.

SimilarWeb will help you to:

• Identify top traffic sources on your competitors’ webpages
• Analyze marketing strategies used by your competitors
• Assess affiliate performance
• Identify new PPC campaign opportunities
• Optimize your PPC ads by emulating winning ad strategies
• Uncover valuable keywords

For full access to all of SimilarWeb’s capabilities, prices start from $149/month, billed monthly. However, if you want a reduced functionality version, there is a free Google Chrome extension you can download.

Snitcher

Snitcher stands out on our list with its unique approach. Instead of focusing on what the competition is doing and trying to beat them at their own game, it focuses on maximizing the potential of your existing site visitors. This cutting-edge technology allows you to extract crucial insights from anonymous site visitors that you can use to your advantage.

The tools deployed by Snitcher will allow you to:

• Segment the qualified leads and businesses that visit your site
• Identify the company behind any IP address
• Develop sales funnels and PPC campaigns tailored to the companies visiting your website

Snitcher has a free trial available for 14 days, but to continue using the tool after the trial expires, you’ll need to choose a subscription plan. Pricing plans start from $42/month for up to 100 unique company identifications. The more identifications you need to do increases the price per month.

Follow

Follow can help you gain a competitive edge and make better-informed business decisions by giving you a high-level overview of any website you want. It also has a browser extension that gives you quick website insights while you’re online.

With Follow, you can:

• Identify top-performing ads and affiliate offers
• Get an overview of the website performance in SERPs
• Receive notifications when a website makes changes

Follow does have a forever free account that gives you 50 lookups per month and the ability to see about 50% of the website overview data. If that’s not quite enough, the most affordable plan costs $37/month with monthly billing and gives you up to 500 lookups.

Ispionage

Isoionage can help you drive targeted traffic to your site by identifying gaps in your marketing strategy and that of your competitors. They promote their tool as being powerful enough for digital marketing agencies and streamlined enough for in-house digital marketers.

Using the Ispionage tool, you can:

• Complete a full competitor analysis, including a user report
• Get a PPC and advertising effectiveness score
• Analyze your keywords and landing pages
• Do a content gap analysis
• Monitor keyword searches and ad campaigns

Ispionage doesn’t have free access, but you can get your money back after 30 days if you’re not satisfied with the tool. Pricing plans start from $59/month and there is an enterprise plan for those who want a customized solution.

Adbeat

Adbeat helps you spy on your competitors’ advertising strategies with a competitive PPC analysis. You will know exactly what they’re doing and how effective it is for them.

With Adbeat’s technology, you’ll be able to:

• Analyze your competitors’ ads and landing pages
• Schedule alerts when new ad campaigns are launched
• Develop customizable and downloadable reports
• Collect data from over 90 different advertising channels

Adbeat provides a forever free plan with access to only basic analysis, but you also have the safety net of a 30-day money-back guarantee if you opt for a paid plan. Plans with full access to listed features start from $249/month.

VisualPing

VisualPing is a straightforward platform for monitoring changes to any website. Just enter the URL address, select the frequency at which you want the website scanned, and enter a contact email address – that’s all it takes. You’ll receive email alerts whenever there are updates on the site.

This tool is simple yet very effective. It keeps you informed about your competitors’ latest ad campaigns and website modifications in real-time.

With VisualPing, you can:

• Scan up to 5000 web pages as frequently as every five minutes
• Compare changes over time by viewing them side-by-side
• Build your own customized reporting with the VisualPing API

For the business-specific accounts that grant access to more users and allow for more page monitoring, prices start from $50/month. But, you can also discuss a customized enterprise solution with their sales team.

Akkio

Akkio is an AI-powered PPC analysis and predictive modeling tool designed to give digital agencies a competitive advantage. It helps refine your campaigns by understanding and leveraging the strengths and weaknesses of competitors’ search strategies, including keywords, ad copy, landing pages, and more. The AI functionality makes it seem as if you’re chatting with the data to find out more about how your competitors allocate their PPC budget.

With Akkio, you can:

• Analyze a competitor’s top keywords for clicks and conversion rate
• Dig deep into the effectiveness of their landing pages
• Understand how the competition is using remarketing techniques
• Assess how competitors track ROI by looking at the tags they use
• Learn from collected data to create accurate budget forecasts

Akkio has a range of pricing options; with the most affordable plan, which goes for $49/month, you will be able to build, view, and share live reports. You can also optimize the modeling tool by training it with your data. It’s possible to get free access to Akkio as well, but you won’t have many options to customize reports how you’d like.

Google Ads Auction Insights

Google Ads Auction Insights is available to anyone with a Google Ads account and gives a simple overview of how your ads compare to competitor ad bids. It will help you assess and improve your budget and bidding strategies.

With Google Ads Auction Insights, you can:

• See your ad impression share
• Identify how much overlap your ads have with competitor ads
• Pinpoint how often your ad outranks the competition
• Adjust ad budgets based on performance
• Use the data to complete a deeper PPC audit

Compared to other tools, Google Ads Auction Insights doesn’t have such a wide functionality. But it comes free with your Google Ads account, and the insights can lead to further investigation and improvement in ad performance.

Ahrefs

Ahrefs is an all-in-one SEO tool that you can use to analyze competitors’ content, backlinks, keywords, PPC ads, and more!

With Ahrefs, you can:

• Breakdown competitor’s keywords by the amount of traffic generated
• Combine both organic and paid traffic for keywords
• Find the content gaps left by your top competition
• Analyze top ads by keyword
• Take a deep dive into the bidding history of selected keywords

An Ahrefs subscription starts at $99/month and will give you access to all the competitive analysis functionality you need, including the rank tracker and keyword research tool.

BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo is a content marketing platform with a variety of functions that include everything from SEO to social media monitoring. Additionally, it excels in PPC competitive analysis, helping you identify which competitors are capturing audience interest and on which topics.

With BuzzSumo, you can:

• Identify your competitors
• Analyze your competitors’ content marketing strategies
• See which platforms they’re advertising or posting on
• Create alerts for specific keywords or a competitor’s domain to receive a notification as soon as new content is produced

To get access to all the basic features for one user, BuzzSumo starts at $199/month. You can trial the platforms for free for 30 days before you commit to a paid subscription.

Pathmatics

Pathmatics is a market research and analytics platform that allows you to research your competitor’s ad campaigns on a wide variety of advertising platforms, including social, video, mobile, and display ads.

With Pathmatics, you can:

• View current and historical ad spend
• Access metrics like ad impressions
• Break down competitors’ ads by spend and impressions
• Gain insights into your competitors’ ad strategies
• Pinpoint target audience profiles
• View a selection of competitors in a side-by-side comparison
• Identify gaps and missed opportunities for keywords

Pathmatics doesn’t offer transparent pricing on their website, so you’ll have to contact them to learn more. If you’re unsure about the platform, there’s a free demo you can try out.

Netpeak

Netpeak offers a downloadable URL checker tool that can perform in-depth competitor analysis, allowing you to explore the performance and marketing strategies of multiple websites.

With Netpeak, you can:

• Monitor competitor pricing for changes
• Analyze competitors’ PPC strategies
• Compare multiple URLs simultaneously
• Identify competitor ad spend

When you sign up for Netpeak, you’ll get three days of free unlimited access, after which you automatically have a free account, subject to restrictions. If you want to upgrade, prices for full Netpeak access start at $69/quarter.

The Search Monitor

The Search Monitor will help your business identify top competitors and monitor their ad campaigns around the clock. It also allows you to defend against paid search brand infringements and affiliate policy violations.

With The Search Monitor, you can:

• Set up alerts for when new competitors enter your niche
• Customize URL crawl targets
• Analyze metrics like market share, ad spend, ranking, and clicks
• Track priority keywords

The Search Monitor doesn’t have set pricing packages; instead, you can build your own depending on your priorities, whether that’s brand and affiliate monitoring or complete competitor search intelligence.

Search Metrics

Search Metrics have integrated both SEO and PPC results into the same dashboard, which is super convenient for anyone building organic traffic while also using PPC.

With Search Metrics, you can:

• See recent site history highlighting any growths or decreases in traffic as a result of PPC campaigns
• Use the Research Cloud tool to visualize an overview of the entire competitive landscape, including traffic volume, ranking keywords, and average position
• Set up continuous monitoring of SERPs for select keywords

The Search Metrics pricing options are not clearly stated, but they do offer a free demo. For a full rundown of their pricing, you’ll have to contact customer support.

Wask

Wask is an ad analysis tool that helps companies optimize their ads for improved performance. They have a free competitive analysis tool that, although it only provides a brief snapshot of information, gives a great taste to anyone who wants to upgrade and find out more.

With Wask, you can:

• Analyze your competitor’s audience and advertising strategy
• Create a target audience segment based on your leads, industry data, and your competitors
• Take a deep dive into the performance of your ad funnels over time
• Gauge their top-performing keywords and the average CPC
• Understand advertising spend and the paid traffic your competition is attracting

The PPC Competitor Analysis tool is free, but you’ll have to pay if you want to create reports and access smart analytics. The cheapest starting plan is Basic for $29/month. However, this doesn’t include the Google or Facebook Ads optimization functionality; for that, you’ll have to upgrade to the next pricing plan for $89/month.

Sprout Social

If you’re looking to spy on your competitor’s social media ad campaigns, Sprout Social has the tool for the job. Sprout Social gives you deep insights into audience growth and post volume, which you can use as a benchmark for your own social ads or to better understand their winning formula.

With Sprout Social, you can:

• Analyze the type of ads used by your competition and their preferred social platforms
• Collect information on competitors’ messaging and offerings to differentiate your message
• Use the social listening functionality to passively collect insights about your competition
• Create charts and reports to compare your performance to your competitors side-by-side

You can test out Sprout Social for free for 30 days, but after that, plans start from $249/seat/month.

Do it Alone or Get Some Help?

Are your ad campaigns not hitting the mark and you can’t work out why? This is a common scenario, especially with Google ad campaigns, where despite reaching over 90% of internet users, success can be elusive due to some common mistakes.

Navigating these challenges and outperforming your competition requires more than just effort; it demands smart strategies and insights. For many in the PPC game, seeking expert guidance can be a game-changer!

At Powered by Search, we specialize in optimizing your paid ads to not just compete, but to lead the pack. Feel free to browse our site or get in touch for more detailed info.

In Summary

These 20 PPC spy tools are designed to give you a competitive edge and keep you ahead in the game. Many offer basic features for free while providing more advanced options with a trial or money-back guarantee, allowing you to test them before committing.

Of course, a great starting place is to assess your SaaS company and identify your scalability score. This free assessment tool will look at nine different revenue accelerators to gauge how well you attract, engage, and convert leads.