Making most out of the latest spying technology (5)
I have tried a lot and as there are always new ones available like adspy.mobi, adsxposed, makemassive etc. I'm pretty sure I will try even more in the future.
I just have one big problem:
As a noob: How can I make most out of this technology? It is just so overwhelming and it's hard to stay focused. You log in, see so many different angles, landing pages, banner ideas, geos, ad networks, offers, and so on.
What if I just want to go with 2-3 offers? Should I try to copy as much as I can, even rip landing pages for example? Or should I just use it as inspiration for own angles?
As far as I understand, these tools can only show you half the way. You don't know if he is using keyword targeting for example which could be the difference between + and -.
All these new tools that are considered as game changers are new to me. I'd like to make the most out of it.
Any advice appreciated.
feel the same as you 
It depends on if you're spying for the first time, or already know the landscape well and only do some additional "research".
For the first time I'd do it like this:
1. Choose your vertical (for example only sweepstakes) and only look for those landers
2. Go through all spy tools you got access to, and take notes on different "overall styles" of landing pages being used for this vertical / also notes on the angles being used.
3. Identify save pages. These do not work and you don't want to take them as inspiration. Save pages will usually be way less aggressive than the most aggressive pages you find while spying,
4. For all real page styles, write down what is similar between these styles , and what is different (what's similar will likely work across the board)
5. Downloading one example of each "style" , going more into the source code, and writing down specifically which details I like about each one , and what I don't like. For example one uses a cool intro pop, some nice script, a back button or whatever. By going through a lot of pages you'll quickly end up with a repertoire of cool stuff to split-test. Same goes for angles, and the kind of offers being promoted. You want to clear the "fog" and get a clear picture of what's being done by everybody.
6. Test. test. test ... for example the best page you found during spying vs. your own creation. The different page styles you found against each other. Mixing stuff you found on pages, adding your own ideas and angles. After doing this for a couple weeks you'll have a much clearer idea of what works and what does not...
... and after some time you'll be able to tell if a landing page on a spy tool is worth testing , if it lacks some good script that would boost conversions , if the angle is new or years old , ....
TLDR;
The most important part is testing and running campaigns. Start with split-testing two landingpages , instead of getting paralyzed by the amount of data. Focus 
thanks
To keep the focus, you need to define an strategy first and then use the Spy tools and not the other way around, unless you are experienced enough to not to lose focus and to know what to look for and how to filter properly the information.
Here are some ideas:
Market research: Let's say you define that your strategy is to go to 3rd tier countries (cheap traffic and high volumes like in Asia or Latam). I would chose the country first, then use the tool to get an overall view of the kind of offers running there. If I see a lot of sweeps offers, it might mean that those offers work well there, so I would focus on that kind of offer and start to dig deeper into banners, prelanders etc using the spy tool.
Competition: If you know the tracking urls from one of your competitors in one country and he is good at it, you can search for more countries where he is also promoting offers.
Traffic sources: If you already know the offer you want to promote, you can search for other mediabuyers promoting it, and to locate the traffic sources where they are buying the traffic.
There is a lot of different stuff you can research, information is always gold, but before searching for something, decide what are you looking for.
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