AdPlexity is one of the most established ad intelligence tools in performance marketing, and plenty of media buyers still call it the OG of Ads spy tools. It helps media buyers and affiliates see what is actually working across verticals, from ad creatives and landing pages to full funnels and redirect chains.
Its newest product, AdPlexity Social, goes beyond the surface. Instead of only showing you a competitor's ad, it maps the networks, landers, and funnel behind it, so marketers can rebuild winning assets instead of guessing.
Leading growth here is Guido Silbert, Head of Marketing & Growth at AdPlexity.
Guido has been in the game since 2012, working across Nutra, affiliate, and e-com before moving into SaaS four years ago — first with TheOptimizer and now with AdPlexity. He also hosts the Behind The Ads podcast, where he talks shop with some of the sharpest operators around.
In this exclusive interview, Guido shared his thoughts on selling to a professionally skeptical audience, the verticals worth watching in 2026, why copying winners quietly fails, and how he would research a brand-new offer with 48 hours and an ad spy tool. He also got into RSOC and search arbitrage, lead gen and pay per call, and when the spy world will finally crack TikTok.
1. Two-minute version for our readers. Who's Guido, and how did you end up running growth at what people call the OG of spy tools?
Veteran performance marketer. I've been involved in the industry since 2012 — Nutra, affiliate, e-com — and four years ago I decided to move into SaaS, first with TheOptimizer and now with AdPlexity.
2. You sit at AdPlexity Social, but you're also all over the content — RSOC guides, telehealth breakdowns, podcasts.
Is that the job, or is that just you not being able to stop talking about this stuff?
I love performance marketing, every single side of it. And I am in a privileged position where I can see trends in real time and talk to people involved in different parts of the industry, so I love creating helpful content on how our platform helps our users with their businesses.
3. What pulled you into performance marketing in the first place? Was there a campaign or a moment where it clicked that this was the game for you?
Like most of us in the industry, I started out of curiosity and a fascination with being able to make money online, back when that was not as popular as it is today.
4. Marketing a spy tool to affiliates is a weird gig. Your whole audience is professionally suspicious and allergic to being sold to. How do you sell to people who sniff out a funnel from a mile off?
You could not describe the audience better, lol. It is definitely a challenge to sell to such an audience, but our value proposition beats their skepticism.
Ad intelligence and competitive research are a must in the industry, and I like to believe we do it better than our competitors. At the end of the day, one good idea on an angle, or on what offer to run, pays our service fees many times over, so the ROI tends to be very positive.
5. What's the growth lever at AdPlexity that everyone underrates — the one that quietly moves the needle more than the flashy stuff?
Providing value. We are in a highly competitive market — there are many tools. What we do day and night, together with the whole team, is think about how we can give more value to our users than they can get from our competitors, and that is why performance marketers switch to our tools regularly.
6. Give us the bit you don't post on LinkedIn. What's the least glamorous part of running growth at a tool this size?
I would say the least glamorous part is what happens behind the scenes. We try to constantly improve the platform, and sometimes, due to the size of our infrastructure, things go slower than planned.
7. You lot see what's winning across basically every vertical in real time. What's a trend right now that most affiliates haven't clocked yet but really should?
Things move super fast in the space, and there are opportunities everywhere for those who laser-focus on them.
Of course, there are certain industries that became super hard, such as search arbitrage. I would say that lead gen and e-com are the two top industries in the white hat world, and VSLs and iGaming are probably the busiest on the black hat side.
8. Everyone bangs on about “spy on winners and copy them.” Where does that go wrong? What separates the people who print money with a spy tool from the ones who just build a swipe folder and get nowhere?
I never recommend copying, but rather understanding the winning assets so you can reproduce similar ones — not just the creatives, but also the funnels. For example, if a hook in a video has been used thousands of times, then it is a good idea to create something similar instead of starting from zero. We provide our users with a number of signals, so they can run their campaigns with a higher level of certainty that they will work. When you start from zero, it is really hit and miss, but when you use a tool like ours, you can start from where other people in your space already found the right angles, funnels, messaging, and so on.
9. RSOC and search arbitrage blew up after Google tightened the screws and AFD basically vanished. For someone who's never touched it, is that door still open in 2026, or has the crowd already ruined it?
Very difficult space, to be honest. There are a few large players still making it work, but many people in the space either downscale or switch to another industry. It would not be a space I would recommend someone start right now. But who knows — maybe in the future something changes once again.
10. You called lead gen the big winner and pay per call massive going into 2026. Still your read, or has something shifted since?
Absolutely. Many of our users are in these spaces, and their operations keep getting bigger. Of course, the type of verticals keeps changing all the time and they keep adapting, but overall it seems to be a space where there are lots of opportunities. The reasoning is simple: there will always be people who need to buy leads. Certain types of campaigns might change based on regulation — for example, Medicare is not what it used to be since the US government tightened the funding — but there are many other spaces.
11. Ad-block eating impressions, AI writing the creative, compliance getting tighter every quarter. Which of those actually keeps you up at night for the industry?
On most of our tools, ad blockers are really a big challenge because they make our data collection 100x harder, so out of those three, I would say that is the one that affects us the most directly. We are living in an AI revolution, so that is what presents the most opportunities — not only for writing, but for almost everything.
12. The one gap everyone keeps asking you to fill is TikTok. Fair question. When does the spy world properly crack TikTok, and why is it so hard?
We plan to expand into TikTok next. Our main focus is on AdPlexity Social right now — we are adding a lot of excellent metrics and features — and once we feel ready, we will plug into TikTok as well.
13. Say you're handed a brand-new offer in a vertical you've never run, and you've got AdPlexity and 48 hours. Walk us through exactly what you're pulling and in what order.
That is where AdPlexity comes in super handy. For example, the way I would approach the research is by selecting the industry or vertical in our filters. If the offer is something more specific, I would try searching by keyword as well — you can stack filters and keywords together.
From here, I would check the ads and the results, and I would look into the domain dimension to see if there are any clear leaders in the space whose funnels and strategies I can review. The idea is to find the current winning elements, from the creative to the landing page, analyze those very carefully, and produce new assets based on something that is proven to work instead of guessing.
14. Quick fire to close. Most overhyped thing in performance marketing right now, most underrated, and one call for the rest of 2026 you'd put real money on?
I would say the overhyped thing right now is the idea that you can copy something and make money fast. Any industry requires a lot of focus, testing, and understanding, so there is no such thing as making money fast.
The most underrated is the importance of human and commercial relationships. Working closely with your clients to build a long-term relationship is the key to success in any business, and sometimes people forget this.
I would put money, time, and energy into building assets that last over time — from an e-com brand to JVs with businesses that do not vanish after the click or the conversion. This is something that keeps coming up on our podcast, Behind The Ads, where we interview industry experts, many of whom partner with businesses as performance marketers, taking affiliate marketing one step further.
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Our chat with Guido Silbert gave us a grounded look at how ad intelligence really moves the needle in performance marketing.
With more than a decade across Nutra, affiliate, and e-com, Guido explained why the winners are not the ones building swipe folders, but the ones studying proven hooks, angles, and funnels and then producing their own.
He pointed to lead gen and pay per call as two of the biggest opportunities heading through 2026, with e-com strong on the white hat side. His reasoning is simple: there will always be businesses that need to buy leads, and smart marketers keep adapting as verticals and regulation shift.
Guido was also honest about the hard parts, from ad blockers making data collection tougher to the daily push to give users more value than any competing tool. His long-game advice stuck with us: build assets and relationships that last instead of chasing fast money that disappears after the click.
As competition tightens across every vertical, the right ad intelligence tool and a patient strategy matter more than ever.
Ready to research smarter and launch your next campaign with real signals behind it?
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