Over the years, I have spent hundreds of dollars on online ads. I learned how to use ad spy tools out of necessity. This experience gives me enough leverage to understand and decide which ones are the best. 

So far, the best tool I can recommend as an alternative to Ad Spy is Dropship.IO. I am saying this not because I am part of the company but because of what the tool can provide. Dropship.IO gives you an ad spy tool and a way to spy on online stores and product performances.  

Dropship.IO and my list may not be for everyone, as we all have different needs. However, I suggest you read through each, as you may find some tools you have never heard of before.  

Here is a quick list of the nine best alternatives to Ad Spy: 

1. Dropship.IO – best overall alternative to Ad Spy
2. Anstrex – best for massive ad spying on many networks
3. DropiSpy – best free alternative to Ad Spy
4. BigSpy – best for tracking ad performance 
5. PiPiAds – best for TikTok ads
6. PowerAdSpy – best affordable alternative to Ad Spy
7. SpyFu – best for PPC and SEO campaigns
8. AdPlexity – best for advertising according to device type
9. AdFlex – best for accurate ad spy data

Let us move on and see the details of each one!

The 9 Best Ad Spy Alternatives

1. Dropship.IO – best overall alternative to Ad Spy

Dropship.IO gives you access to the Facebook Ads Library. It is different because you can view ads from specific stores or ads tied to particular products. Most ad spy tools only show you random ads, many of which have nothing to do with your competitor or niche. 

It also allows you to save Facebook ads automatically using our Chrome extension. These get saved to a personal database and can be used to help you learn what works well in your market. 

This means you can make better ads for your business, sell more, and thus make more money.

In addition to this, our tool allows you to spy on your competitors and search for winning products. It is the only tool you need to succeed in your dropshipping store. 

Dropship.IO Features

• Competitor Research – you can search our system for competitors by typing a keyword. After clicking “search,” you will see a list of products relevant to what you are looking for, plus the vendors of these products. The system will show you critical business information in the vendor profile, like total revenue, total sales volume, sales trends for the past months (daily), and unique products sold. 
• Product Research – there is always a risk in selling untested products. Our tool can show you whether a product is hot or not. In this feature, you can type a product keyword, and we will show you all stores that carry it and their sales performances. We do not show sales from the supplier. Rather, we show sales from the dropshippers.  
• Chrome Extension – we offer a free Chrome extension that you can install to make research easier. If you are browsing products online, the extension will notify you and ask if you want to track this store and product. 
• Suppliers – we have a supplier database that we are consistently growing. We add suppliers to this list if we deem them fit for business. You can work with these suppliers once you have found a winning product in our system. You can contact them directly through Skype, which we include on the supplier’s profile page.  

Dropship.IO Pros

• Our system is intuitive and self-explanatory
• You can track product performances
• You can view ads associated with specific products 
• There is a Chrome extension that makes spying fast and easy

Dropship.IO Cons

• Right now, we only track FB ads and Shopify stores.

Dropship.IO gives you some serious advantages for spying on ads and other things. It is the tool that every dropshipper should have right at the get-go. 

Try our tool and see amazing results now! We offer a 7-day free trial program where you can test all the features without financial commitments.

2. Anstrex – best for massive ad spying on many networks

Anstrex is an extensive ad spying platform that accesses 27 ad networks. I recommend this ad spy network if you have a huge dropshipping store. It is also an excellent platform for advertising and marketing agencies. 

Anstrex has several product verticals, including the Anstrex Dropship platform. I will share the top features of the ad spy and the dropship programs. 

Anstrex Features

• Anstrex Native – this is the platform you need to build successful advertising campaigns. You can spy on your competition and manage your ad spending. If you know the market your competitors are targeting, you can copy their strategy and leverage their success. 
• Ad Database – one thing you will love about Anstrex is its database of ads, which now has over 10 million ads. These ads come from over 150,000 advertisers from various niches. In addition, the company covers 80 countries and 27 advertising networks. 
• Filters – you can easily filter ads you want to see. Some examples of these filters are by category, country, duration of the ad, the affiliate network that launched the ad, and the ad platform. 
• Importation – you can find products in the dropship tool and import them to your store. They also have an extension that allows you to process orders quickly and manage your inventory. This tool also allows you to find winning products in AliExpress. 

Anstrex Pros

• They have a huge database of ads, covering multiple advertising platforms
• They have a dropshipping platform where you can find winning products
• You can rip or download the ad that you want to copy

Anstrex Cons

• The plans are expensive; you must pay at least $69.99 per month per user. 

Anstrex is a great tool if you are doing a massive advertising campaign. The dropship platform also works well for beginners who need guidance on what products to sell. 

One thing that you can do with Anstrex is to view traffic data. Most dropship tools do not show this at all. With the Anstrex dropship tool, you can find suppliers, wining products, and import products to your store. It is not that different from other tools like Dropified. 

The dropship tool has a free plan, but the ad spy does not. With the free plan, you can only import five products in a month, and you have a limit for importing from three suppliers only. 

3. DropiSpy – best free alternative to Ad Spy

DropiSpy is an ads database created for dropshippers. It allows you to spy on the best ads of a dropshipping store—your competitors included. 

At a glance, the ad thumbnails show you how the ads performed on social media. You will immediately see how many people liked the ad, which platforms the advertiser used, and more. Upon clicking the ad, you will see stats for demographics such as country, sex, and age.

Dropispy Features

• Large Database – like the previous spy tool, Dropispy has a huge database of ad creatives from multiple platforms. The company adds more than 20,000 new ads per day. Right now, they have a database that houses 50 million ads. 
• Trending Ads – you can use this tool to find successful and trending ads. The way to see it is through the data on the ad, plus real-time data, provided that the ad is currently running. 
• Filter – you can filter the ads you see by network, keyword, country, and more. This filter system narrows your investigation, saving you time in spying activities. 
• Winning products – you can use the tool to find winning products in the dropshipping universe. If you see an ad with many likes and positive comments, you can use the information from the report to determine which products have a high demand. The data you see here, however, is not as detailed as the one that we have. 

Dropispy Pros

• The search process is efficient
• There is a huge database of ads
• They update the database every day
• They have fast servers

Dropispy Cons

• The free plan does not give you credits; you can only use it for basic searches. 

Dropispy is ideal if you are on a tight budget. The free plan gives you access to the spy tool and basic filter options. One thing you can enjoy with the free program is the unlimited downloads. 

However, you cannot use the advanced filters. As such, you must sift through thousands of ads that may not be relevant to your business. You will also not have access to recent ads and the Shop Spy tool. 

Finally, Dropispy and Ad Spy use the same idea or backbone of processes. The main difference is that Dropispy will show you the evolution of ad shares, reactions, and real-time data—something Ad Spy does not do.

4. BigSpy – best for tracking ad performance 

Big Spy is what you use to track ads on several advertising platforms. With BigSpy, you can even monitor and spy on ads Unity, which is great if you are dropshipping in the gaming niche.  

In a nutshell, here are the things you can do: 

• Show ad data and performance
• Track ads 
• Download ads

Although BigSpy says that it is free, it really isn’t. You only get a free trial, but you must subscribe to a paid plan once this trial period ends. 

BigSpy Features

• Ad Networks – BigSpy covers Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, YouTube, Etsy, Unity, Admob, and many more ads. Dropshippers targeting various platforms will love this feature, as you can find your target market from these sites. 
• Ad Database – this tool has the biggest ad database in the world. The database has one billion (with a “b”) ads you can review. While this may sound overwhelming, I can tell you that searching for ads here is not like finding a needle in a haystack. Its powerful filter tool can narrow your search to your niche and target platform. 
• Featured Ads – you automatically have access to a dashboard that shows the top-performing ads. It is a list of trending ads that perform well. You can draw ideas and inspiration from these ads and apply them to your marketing campaigns. 
• Ad Thumbnail – the dashboard gives you a quick look at important ad metrics like popularity score, impressions, and more. These stats can help you filter the ads you want to see or check.

BigSpy Pros

• Has coverage for nine advertising networks
• The site has a massive database of ads
• You can track ads and see how they perform 
• The platform gives you ideas about how to design your ads
• You can track Facebook pages

BigSpy Cons

• Paid plans have significant limitations
• You cannot play video ads unless you pay more

BigSpy works best for dropshippers in the gaming niche because you can spy on the Unity platform. If you do not plan to pay thousands of dollars monthly, I suggest you look for another ad spy tool like ours. 

Why? Because you cannot play the ads in BigSpy unless you pay $3,600 a month. If you want to play the videos, you must get the VIP plan, the only one that gives you access to all the tools. 

My verdict? Use this tool to see ad copy and image-based ads, not videos. You can sign up for an account, browse the ads, and learn from the ad designs and copy. 

5. PiPiAds – best for TikTok ads

PiPiAds is best for dropshippers who want to ride on the TikTok bandwagon. There has been so much craze about TikTok lately that many advertisers are flocking to the platform. However, I must tell you now that TikTok may not be your best option. 

Why is this? If you do not know it yet, TikTok has restrictions per region. Because of this, you cannot expect to advertise on TikTok US if your account is from Asia. If this is not the case, then PiPiAds is one that you can consider using.  

PiPiAds Features

• Ad Database – this platform has over 20 million advertising ads in its network. As such, you can get best practices from many dropshippers and big-time e-commerce entities. 
• Thumbnails – search results show a thumbnail of the ad creative, be it a video or an image. The results also give you a snapshot of ad impressions, how many days the advertisement ran, and how popular it is. Looking at these data points, you can immediately choose or ignore an ad if it does not fit your expectations.
• Advertiser Spy – you can spy on specific TikTok advertisers and see their ads. Use this feature to visit ads from your competitors. See how they market their products and get inspiration from their winning ads. 

PiPiAds Pros

• It is easy to view viral ads on TikTok
• You will have access to tens of millions of TikTok ads
• You can use the tool to find winning products 

PiPiAds Cons

• The ad tool is expensive; plans start at $77 per month.

PiPiAds is great if your target is TikTok and nothing else. Should you decide to advertise on Google, Facebook, or Instagram, you need to subscribe to another service from another company.

PiPiAds offers several types of advertising niches and industries. For example, you can view ads from dropshippers only. If you want to see affiliate ads, you can also do that. 

Finally, the company has several calculators allowing you to manage costs or set business expectations. For one, there is a calculator for how much traffic to target based on your revenue goal. Our website has similar calculators, but we focus on things like CPA and ROAS. You can check our calculator for return-on-ad-spend here. 

6. PowerAdSpy – best affordable alternative to Ad Spy

PowerAdSpy specializes in the coverage of various social media advertising platforms. The platform allows you to analyze and search ads based on their positions. What makes PowerAdSpy unique is that they have a popularity and impressions index. 

This index is a scoring system you can use to filter ads based on how popular they are. The impression range also makes it possible to narrow your search to ads with the highest impressions. It is also possible to filter your searches by e-Commerce platform and by operating system type.

PowerAdSpy Features

• Networks – PowerAdSpy covers Google, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Reddit, Quora, and other networks. 
• Popularity Index – many ad tools show you random ads. With PowerAdSpy, you can filter the search to ads with the highest impressions. Although these ads are costly, you would know that these ads are targeting the right people. From here, you can go to the analytics data and then find out what demographics your competitor is targeting.
• Ad Tracker – you can track ads you like and see how the ad’s performance changes daily. This feature can help you determine if a new ad is worth copying.
• Search – you can search ads by using different filters. Some examples are domain search, call-to-action, bookmark, data interval search, filter by country, and many more. 

PowerAdSpy Pros

• They offer affordable plans for quick use of the system 
• There is a free account you can use with limited search credits
• You can sort and filter your search in many ways
• Advanced analytics is a powerful tool for analyzing the success of ads

PowerAdSpy Cons

• It is a tad expensive if you use it regularly. 

Overall, I can say that PowerAdSpy is a use-it-as-you-need-it tool. Even with the free account, they give you access to all the reports, filter functions, and analytics. However, the search credits, or the number of times you can use them, have limitations. 

I recommend the tool if you need to study ads for a few days only. For example, they offer a plan worth $5.25, but you can only use the tool for three days. This plan is great if you need to advertise. Three days should be enough to gather data about ads.

It makes sense to use it per campaign. For example, you can pay $5.25 today and do your research for one or two platforms. After a month, you can return and use it to study ads on different platforms. 

7. SpyFu – best for PPC and SEO campaigns

SpyFu is the tool you need to work on your SEO and ads in Google. Not all dropshippers want to make sales from ads on social media. Some dropshippers wish to build their traffic through search engine optimization.

With SpyFu, you can search a domain and find out what keywords they used to advertise. You will also see what keywords they used to rank organically. So, if you are selling drones, you’ll know what keywords your competitors buy and use to rank their ads and their sites (for drone products). 

SpyFu Features

• Google Ads Competitor Spy – this tool will show you what keywords your competitors use in their pay-per-click campaigns. Another thing you can do is find keywords related to your niche that your competitors are not using yet. Use these keywords before your competitors do. 
• SEO Competitor Research – use this tool to see and download the keywords your competitors use on their product pages, product titles, and blog posts. You will also see keywords that you are not ranking for—keywords that will positively impact your search rank score. 
• Keyword Tools – the keyword tool is similar to what you see on Google. You will find keywords you do not want Google to use (negative keywords) and other recommendations. You can also check the backlinks of your competitors by keyword.

SpyFu Pros

• You can rank your ads better
• You can increase your traffic organically and save money on ads
• The tool offers backlink recommendations 

SpyFu Cons

• You cannot study data from social media.

SpyFu is a tool that gives you leverage if your focus now is on Google and organic traffic. We both know that advertising on social media platforms is not sustainable unless your dropshipping store earns a lot of money. 

With SpyFu, you can create ads that target the right keywords. You can reuse these keywords and use them in your blog posts and product pages to increase your position in Google Search.

One thing I have to point out is that organic traffic takes time to build. You need consistency in producing content and sharing it on social media. It will take months before the website builds the credibility that Google needs.

8. AdPlexity – best for advertising according to device type 

AdPlexity is a beefed-up spy tool. The platform has a segregation of mobile, desktop, and native ads. It means that for dropshippers, you can study where your competitors’ traffic comes from according to the device they advertise to. 

Like other ad spy tools, you can access ads in different countries. Right now, AdPlexity covers 75 countries. What makes AdPlexity unique is you can uncover advertisements that run on carrier-specific phones—they currently track 120 mobile phone carriers. 

AdPlexity Features

• In-App Ads – the tool provides users with a report about mobile pop-up traffic, app ads, and stats. For example, you will know if ads on mobile work best in games or business apps. If you have data like this, you can target specific games or categories for your dropshipping apps on apps. 
• Filter Options – there are many options to filter the ads you want to analyze. Some examples of these filters are keywords, advertisers, product names, or by affiliate networks. You can also filter by publisher (these are marketing agencies).  
• Analysis – the program makes it possible to break down advertising data in many ways. You can view information by trend, traffic source, targeted devices, etc. 

AdPlexity Pros

• You can search by keyword, advertiser, affiliate network, and many more filters.
• You can download the landing page of your competitors
• You can analyze in-app ads on mobile devices

AdPlexity Cons

• The program costs $199 per month.

AdPlexity is an excellent option if you do not want your ads to drown in social media posts. The tool provides you with other ad sources you may not have heard of before. 

What I like about the tool is carrier-based advertising analytics. This works best if you have expensive or novelty products. You will uncover ads that deliver sales or conversion from unusual or irregular advertising channels.

9. AdFlex – best for accurate ad spy data

Although ad spy tools like ours are accurate, AdFlex adds something new. The creators designed a platform that offers the ad structure of an ad or campaign. This data will help you fully understand the secrets of your competitor. 

Here are some examples of the data you will see:

• Audience type
• Region
• The targeted interests
• Engagement rate

You will also see the headlines of the ads and the placement. From this information alone, you can see massive differences between your ads and your competitors. As such, you can explore and apply the best practices to your campaigns. 

AdFlex Features

• Data Filters – the search tool provides users with many filter options. You can view the ads by a range of impression count, placement, country, platform, etc.
• Big Database – AdFlex has a database of 15 million ads. This may not be as huge as what the other spy tools have, but it covers a wide array of ads from Facebook and TikTok. They also keep store ads from 80+ countries. 

AdFlex Pros

• The interface is easy to understand
• You can use the tool to hunt for winning products
• You can research possible costs of advertising from ad networks
• They have a huge database of ads

AdFlex Cons

• They cover mostly Facebook, TikTok, and Google native ads.

AdFlex is an ideal spy tool if you want an interface that is easy to use. I recommend it to dropshippers who need a simple tool to find successful ad campaigns easily. Finally, it is best for dropshippers and marketers who need deep-dive information on a successful ad’s internal structure. 

Is an Ad Spy important to a dropshipper, and why?

Yes, an ad spy is a critical tool for a dropshipper. However, you only need this once your website is up and running. An ad spy is the best source of inspiration and data to help you become a marketing manager. 

One problem that dropshippers face all the time is the cost of tools. You will spend money on product-hunting tools like Ecomhunt. Then, you have to spend money on ad spy tools. Why not combine these expenses in a tool that has both?

One good example is our software, Dropship.IO. A single subscription gives you access to the following: 

• Product hunting tools
• Competitor analysis and tracking
• Ad spy for Facebook
• Supplier list
• Dropshipping academy 

We currently only have links to Facebook ads. I think this should be enough, especially for those at the beginning of their journey. You can expand your tool arsenal later on after you make a sale.

Things to look for in an ad spy tool

Here are some things you need to look for when looking for an ad spy tool: 

• Coverage of ad networks – while more is better, what matters is that you have access to ads on the platform of your choice.
• Cost – use ad spy tools that are affordable, yet they give you value for your money. Avoid expensive ad spy tools. These tools are best for marketing agencies, not dropshippers. 
• Data – it is not enough that an ad spy tool shows the ads. You must also consider what kind of information is available to you. 

To make an informed decision, choose ad spy tools that offer a trial period, like the free 7-day trial that we offer. Test the tool without any financial risk, and only commit if the device meets your needs.

Best Alternatives to Ad Spy: FAQ

What is better than AdSpy?

Dropshp.IO is the best alternative to Ad Spy. Although we only cover Facebook, our system shows you sales data from your competitors. You can also track product performances and what apps stores use to succeed. 

What is Ad Spy vs Dropispy?

Dropispy is better than Ad Spy if you are on a tight budget. You can use the advertising database at zero cost. 

Is Ad Spy worth it?

Yes, it is worth it. However, it is best for marketing agencies. As a dropshipper, you are better off using programs like ours.  

Can you get Ad Spy for free?

You can only avail yourself of the free trial. Once the trial has expired, you must upgrade your account. 

Summary

The next step I recommend is for you to test our ad spy tool. The test is completely risk-free—you can use the different features for free for seven days!

Dropship.IO is the best alternative to Ad Spy because we combine the best of both worlds—you get an ad spy tool plus a dropshipping and product spy software program. And the best part? You only pay for one subscription!