An In-Depth Review of CrawlQ

Review by Josecar Peniet

CrawlQ is one of the most complex tools you can find in the market today because it has a lot of data to fill in the backend to make it work at its full potential.

Even having tested thousands of different tools, I needed a lot of time to test CrawlQ properly.

I hope this extensive review helps you to know if it is for you.

USP of CrawlQ

Many people would say that the USP (Unique Selling Proposition) is not a feature, but it is an essential part of every product, so I want to include it here.

CrawlQ’s USP: You input the Marketing research data once, and in exchange, you get custom-crafted high-quality auto-generated content from this AI tool for your business. It can be a blog post, a sales page, a sales video script, etc., and you get it customized and ready to use at virtually one click.

I would tell you to skip any regular AI writing tool if you already have another one in use. But in this case, the USP has a massive relevance in the decision-making process because no other tool I know can do that (unless if we talk about something in lifetime payment).

Let’s see if it can deliver on its promise because it is a tremendous promise to its users after all.

About Market Research

CrawlQ is not a tool for learning to do market research, even if it could help.

The USP said that the tool has to be fed the needed information to craft automatic laser-targeted high-quality copy.

These guys from CrawlQ are promising that the AI will help you through the process of understanding your market.

If they’re able to deliver their promise, they will make an absolute fortune from this. So let’s see what happens in today’s test.

Why Market Research?

CrawlQ promises to completely automate the content creation process based on the data you use as input. For example, market research is an extensive set of data about your customers, competitors, and your own company & product.

Many people complain about the parts that they have to fill in. Yes, it is very long, it should be sequentially requested, it should have better UI (conversational forms or chatbot style) and offer better explanations for the fields you have to fill.

But wait, you don’t need to do market research using this app.

You have to do a lot of market research yourself beforehand because if you don’t do it, you’ll never be able to run a successful business in the first place.

The truth about AI writing tools which nobody tells you

Is doing your own Market Research a problem? Disclaimer for anyone looking into AI writing tools:

I see this endless tendency to find a “Make-me-rich schema” (no work done but expecting great results). Others will always present such promises in a very enticing way. It will always be there, but it will NEVER work.

Everyone should be doing market research by default for their business.

Why is that? Because good copywriting ALWAYS comes from a proper market understanding.

Do you think a good copy can come from writing 80-120 characters in a field and pushing the “generate copy” button? If yes, you might have a mindset problem here.

I always say that AI writing tools are fooling people. For example, most AI writing tool owners promise to replace a copywriter, and that’s a fake promise.

You will find this bogus claim a part of almost every AI writing tool because the tool creates the illusion of doing the same thing as a good copywriter does, but the truth is very different:

When using an AI writing tool, you are not following the proper process but just pulling generic data from Wikipedia and other parts of the Internet. Then, the AI compiles it and processes it in a way that can never be called market research (even if some people might try to fool you by saying it’s the same).

A good copywriter follows a process to gain a deep understanding of your market and target audience thanks to extensive background research and experience.

A good copywriter backs the copy he/she writes for you, applying techniques that are completely tailored for the specific audience you are trying to reach.

That’s what you pay when you pay a copywriter.

The AI tool doesn’t have that capacity, and it is far from having it. The AI tool technically hasn’t been programmed for that task because it is not possible.

Does that mean that the AI writing tool is useless? No, I haven’t said that. The AI writing tool is a tool made to help writers when they are blocked and inspire them with data that contains data that must be verified first by research and adapted to the use case (manually rewriting it).

I hope that clarifies the matter because any text that an AI writing tool writes for you will always be generic, which means poor quality. So without any added human filter, the direct output of an AI writing tool is low-quality generic content.

For my quality standards, I would never use the direct output that an AI writing tool gives. So I didn’t even use an AI to generate this content for me.

So, what’s the problem with AI-generated content? It generates poor-quality, generic copy content that will never be unique. Generic sales copy doesn’t connect nor move emotions nor drive sales. We see the difference in sales between similar products from different brands. It’s all due to marketing.

Market research in CrawlQ

Manual market research input + CrawlQ AI filler and Market research guides

Market research necessary in the Onboarding Process (Unlocking the first set of tools)

After opening a new project, the first thing you find is this screen where they ask you to complete fundamental info about your business.

The *information you fill in will give the AI context when you finally use the AI content generation tool. They have a “let us help” button with a video explaining the system.

They have minimal onboarding for copy generation (telling the AI what your niche is and basic information about your customer).

Once you have completed this quick part, you are ready to use their copy generator. If you look at the graphic below, you will see two parts, the red and the green.

After completing this minimal onboarding, you have entirely functional access to 3 tools in what they call the “Quick Gains” section, as you can see in the image below:

• AI Content Writer: Tool for writing long-form articles.
• AI Content Rewriter: An AI rephrasing tool.
• Text Summarize: An AI summary tool.

I have rounded it with a red circle, so you can understand that it matches the part that contains the same red circle on the left of the image above. Also, a green circle indicates the access to the “Deep Dive” section that is represented by a circle of the same color on the image above (green circle on the right). It is not beautiful, but I hope it helps you to understand this complex system.

You can see that you can already use the “AI Content Writer.” It is similar to any other AI writing long-form tool that you have likely used.

The “Sales Copywriter” option (crossed in green in the image below) belongs to the “Deep Dive” section that needs to get more info from the market research to become functional.

You could access it, but in theory, you will be able to see the results with and without data based on the sample that I’m going to add in this very same article.

At this point, as you can imagine, with the market research info we have introduced until now (just a couple of vague lines), you cannot ask for any customization on the generated content.

This article will show how those tools mentioned above perform with and without introducing market research input.

Market research for the deep dive: Unlocking the Sales Copywriter module

You can see the tools composing the Sales Copywriter module, a set of tools for automatically crafting sales pages and video sales letters.

It’s the combination of the marketing knowledge you input into the system and the copywriting techniques of the most famous and successful copywriters.

We will see if this system works or if it’s all chat.

These are the kind of content that the tool can create based on famous and successful copywriting techniques.

Now, this is when everything gets complex because if you have understood my explanation above on how a good copywriter works compared with an AI writing tool, you should know that you will need to provide this tool with lots of data.

Note that any piece of information will unlock the Sales Copywriter module, but the more data you give the tool, the better the sales copy will be (the theory that I’m trying to prove here).

This is important because the data needed for complete market research is massive (extensive data about customers, competitors + own company and product).

All the examples of data mentioned above provide a general view of all the areas you will fill. Remember that the more info you give the AI, the better the knowledge database this tool will have, so it should be with the output.

There are many categories to fill, and each contains a form. Some of them are short, some are long.

Since this is the most important of all of them, it is the longer one. To have an idea, the content you need to introduce here is almost half of the process.

Remember that all this data is gathered through your research, and it is not something the AI can do. So you have to go out there and get proof of the data you will note for doing rigorous market research that will help you and your business.

The correct way to generate this data is the manual input based on the knowledge you have gained about your market. If you have done your homework to know and understand your market, it will be relatively easy to fill the form fields.

For helping you, button one on the image will fill each form fields with a “formatted” text example in the way that the fields should be filled for their own business (CrawQ AI automation content tool). That text example will serve as a clue on what you need to fill for your business.

The forms that you have to use for introducing as much data as possible look like this (that belongs to the first part of the research “Niche”).

Unfortunately, the way of describing some of the fields is not the best, so in some situations, if you are not familiar with the market research process, you are going to struggle with some fields (even me, with my expertise, I have had some complications trying to understand some of the fields).

Again, CrawlQ’s team recommends filling in as much data as possible, but if you don’t know the answer to anything, you can click on save and continue with the following sections of the market research form.

Some people would say that they don’t want to do this, but being honest, if someone “doesn’t have the time” to understand the market where their business is operating, then it’s a question of when that business will fail. So spending a few hours filling the market research forms (that will be at least a couple of weeks of base market research) is something that shouldn’t bother you that much (with the proper UI that is not there yet, unfortunately.)

CrawlQ AI filler and Market research guides

CrawlQ already knows that this is not an easy task. That’s why they provide some tools that will “help” you and guide you through the process:

1. YOU WILL FIND the AI filler button (2 on the image above) on the top of the same form you are filling. That button will use a few AI generation credits to pull some data from the Internet and will put it on the form after you fill the first two fields of each section. ATTENTION:

As I have already explained above, the data that the AI filler (AI writing tool) pulls is random and is not verified. Remember that it can be the clue you need or the inspiration, but if you don’t verify the data, you feed your database with “fake” data.

 

Using the AI filler is a trick that won’t do you any favor. As you already know, the way of filling this is by doing your market research.

2. The AI “generate insight” (Market Research >Research and Resonance):

On the same screen, you will find a white column on the right. There is a text that says “generate”. That “generate button” does use AI to provide you with insights about your market (that can or cannot be accurate. Remember what I told you about how AI processes the info). Topics such as B2B have more heterogeneous information on the Internet, so they provide better information (that you should still manually check).

To make this as straightforward as possible, I asked the founder, and I copy-pasted his answer. From the founder itself: “This is purely designed to provide extra insights. This does not go to training Athena (it doesn’t generate the AI copywriting). That is information for yourself, the optimization, and generalization of your customer’s avatar. Still, depending on the topic, these are Golden Nudges for a new person to do market research.”

Let’s see what info the “generate insight” button gives about the Semantics for the “Content Automation” Niche.

With only answering the five questions for the onboarding process (opening a project), you can already get those insights that, without any doubt, can inspire you.

The AI insight generated for the semantics of the niche “Content Automation.”

Let’s check another example that only contains the answer to the five initial questions of the onboarding process of the project “Travel to Belize.”

And this is the result that the AI “generate insight” generates from only those five fields (basic project onboarding info):

Niche Quick summary: A young person wants to spend a vacation in beautiful places with scenic views and unspoiled by crowds. What the person is thinking: I want to be a well-traveled person. The person’s problem: 1) I want to have a good time on my vacation. 2) I want to see all of the places I pass on TV. 3) I want to have time to explore the country. 4) I don’t want to have to plan my trip.

The person’s desire: 1) Fun 2) Relaxation 3) Sightseeing 4) To not have stress

Sub-Niche

This niche is associated with people who enjoy snorkeling and want to see the natural beauty of the Caribbean. This includes the blue water, stingrays, and coral reefs—the people in this niche desire to see the place’s natural beauty when traveling on vacation. People who are in this niche are of a younger generation that is exploring. They would like to travel to the Caribbean and explore the natural beauty as well as the culture the Caribbean has to offer. This group is primarily lower-middle class people, but they are looking for options to be able to afford to go on their dream vacations.

Micro-Niche

Backpackers who want to have a good time on a budget. They’re in their 20s and 30s, and they’re mainly from Europe, Australia, Canada, and the US – Young people looking for an escape from stress – Disenchanted corporate workers who have worked for years in banking and expense management, and everybody has the same story – they’re overworked and underpaid – Break-ups that leave couples feeling they need to get away – Language learners and international students – Travelers looking to do something different from their usual tourist destinations.

Vertical

Travel to Belize is a blog about Young Adult who wants to travel to Belize for fun, Backpacker who loves snorkeling in crystal blue water and enjoy the perfect Caribbean sunset, Young backpacker before hitting to college wants to have a relaxing vacation on the beautiful island of Caye Caulker, rent a bike, enjoy a beachfront massage or soak in the sun. #1 Niche Site in Travel to Belize This blog will provide information about Belize, FAQs, routes, where to stay in Belize. It will provide helpful insights from locals’s perspective for your next trip to Belize. After reading this blog, you will know more and feel more confident to explore Belize with your

Ideal Prospect Overview

The person needs a detailed tour guide. A detailed tour guide will help him plan his holiday and enjoy the most part of it without worrying about where to start. A detailed tour guide can provide articles that are detailed yet concise for each stage of the tourist’s journey.

I have to recognize that, even if there’s a lot of repeated output (that comes from the input), the parts that I marked in purple really impressed me. The “first person view” on the first paragraph could be like hearing your customer’s avatar talking to you about what he wants from you. The “Micro-Niche” part also has an impressive paragraph pulled out of the blue by the AI.

Now, the info is given to you through a single click of the mouse (“generate” button). It might not be perfect (depending on the case, it might not be better or worst, more/less accurate or helpful). If you already understand your market perfectly (you have taken your time to do the research for your market as you should), you will probably know most of that information, but it still might give you a different angle on the info or a couple ideas.

If you are coming from zero, and you know nothing, and need to start doing your research without any clue, and need to come up with something fast, that’s better than noting… You could use that info to complete your avatar profile right now, and then go back to the market research to get the real info. Remember that the info is out there, and you have to go and find it. There are no real shortcuts here, but this could help in the meantime.

‼️ The info that the AI provides depends on the information that is pulled from the Internet databases, BUT also from training “Teach me Athena”. If you feed it with a new article, URL or similar, the information displayed there should be different because that new info from the Athena database should be used too, so test it.

 

About the output: Right now, it is pretty nice. They are already working on improving it because it is one of the unique points they offer. This is probably the hidden gold of CrawlQ.

3. The market research tools: As you can see, there are 2 different tools that will guide you and help you in this search for knowledge about your market. By introducing the closest keyword to your niche, you will get data about different content related to the databases that contain the info for your market research.

Spying wizard tool: It shows data such as Google search, Google Trends, Social media, podcasts, questions, books, and products… all that, related to your market (based on the keyword that you use).

This image is showing you relevant data existing on social media. In this case, I have pushed the “Youtube channels” button and the web app directly opens a new window for Youtube and performs the search of the keyword that you have indicated is representative of your niche.

That way you can learn about what is the most-watched content by your audience because the ones on the top are more relevant than the rest. In a deeper analysis, you should:

• Take note of the channels with most followers
• What is the kind of content your audience likes and why
• What is your audience saying in the comments of the relevant videos (why they watch the content, what they like about it, what they dislike about it…)

I know that you are thinking that this is a lot of work, but you don’t need to do it everything right away, you could set an hour per day and go through each one of the sections every day.

Search Intent Discovery Tool: As you can see on the image, it shows data focused on SEO search intents of the audience that is looking for a specific KW and the terms related to the query. The UI is very ugly and it provides a bad UX.

The data is probably pulled by the main tool on the industry that you should use better for this: “Answer the public”. It does the same probably better and it comes with a great UI and UX as you can see on the following screenshot.

“Answer the public” is the tool that I use and recommend for this part of the market research. The good news is that the freemium version is more than good for you.

If you have never done a market research, I’m sure that these tools will help you to go in the right direction and getting the necessary data for filling as many blanks as you can in the CrawlQ forms.

Keep in mind that this is something that can be done a little by little everyday. The more info you give to the system should provide with a better customized output, and that info can be added sequentially, so you can try to spare 30-60 minutes for doing the market research everyday and take note of your findings in a spreedsheet or another doc. Later, when you have relevant findings, try to fill a little data inside CrawlQ (this could be weekly after your everyday research).

I think CrawlQ’s team have done a nice job here adding these tools because it is something specially useful for the people that don’t know how to do a market research. For the one time payment of this lifetime deal, I would consider to keep it only for this (if I were not a professional digital marketer that has already performed the market research for different markets several times).

Now let’s see if the program is showing a huge improvement with both trained and not trained versions for the same document.

After the Market research: Creating content in CrawlQ

Long-form Articles Overview & Output Samples

If you are curious about the interface, As you can see, the system generates the outline as the first piece of content.

You will immediately see that it is very similar to the interfaces of Frase, CloserCopy (compose module), and other similar AI content tools.

You can use the outline the system directly provides you, generate the headlines with the help of the AI tool, handwrite your own outline or pull the headlines from the research data (Google SERPS) and other similar data on the right column.

I like the questions part, and it includes answers generated by the AI. It is even pulling the market research data that I have used. It is funny because it is pulling data that I filled as random and it’s talking about Ranking #1 on Google LOL. Despite that funny “mistake”, you can judge by yourself the quality of the generated copy in both Q&A.

Overall, the system is fine and if I didn’t already have the best tools for all this, I would be open to keeping it even with limited AI credits. However, the amount of credits that the system uses seems reasonable (this is subjective, so it would be better test it yourself).

It is OK and contains nice data/options. However, it doesn’t have an SEO content optimization module (the best lifetime deal out there is MarketMuse’s which doesn’t contain AI writing features).

This long-form editor doesn’t use any of the research data (except for giving an answer to the Q&A), so there’s no option to compare a trained version with a non trained version. Furthermore, the market research data is only available for the “Sales Copywriter” module. But still, it is essential to see what the AI tool can do when creating an article.

Why Learn Chinese – Post Sample

Initial output:

The initial output contains the content that is supposed to be included in this kind of article. You can check it here on the image:

I don’t think the output has enough quality, so I’m going to use the rest of the tools to generate a better outline before proceeding with the article.

Outline Modification

Since this is just a test, I’m not going to try to create the perfect outline, but you can see how, after a quick change, the outline looks much better.

Final output:

The button that will trigger the AI content is the “Write Me Athena”. Note that you need to select some text at the moment of pushing the generation button for it to get content that keeps the context of the article. The best results by context are produced by selecting one of these elements:

• The headline that you want to “expand.”
• The last couple of lines (if you want to continue with the paragraph/topic of that headline).
• The last 2 bullets (if you want to continue with the bullets).

Whenever the AI produces irrelevant output, you need to delete the text and repeat the operation.

Now, it is time to see what the AI generation tool can provide by itself. I’m going to show you the raw data that it generates for every headline of the outline, and for that paragraph in the body. I’m not going to rewrite it so you can see the quality of the direct output of the AI.

Conclusions: I have spent 2500 credits for generating this article only with the help of the AI (after manually modifying the outline). I needed to push the “AI button” several times to rewrite the parts of the article that weren’t related to the desired content. As I mentioned before, I didn’t do the manual rewriting in this test, so keep in mind that you will need less credits if you use less AI and more manual writing.
That’s the best the AI could do. You can judge the quality yourself.

To me, the output is not the best right now, but this kind of tools can have huge improvements in only a couple months if they are properly modified and trained by the developers. I have already been surprised by a couple of these tools before. If you think it is acceptable, it has a big chance to be good for you.

We still have to check the “Sales Copywriter” tool that is probably the best part because it makes extensive use of the market research. Still, at this point, if you are mainly interested in the long-form for writing articles & sales-copy generators, I would consider it a bet: If you test it, and you like what you see, and you don’t have better tools, and you think it can help you and you are confident in the CrawlQ team, then you may want to keep it.

Sales Copywriter Overview & Output Samples

I have generated the following samples in 2 different versions:

• The trained version that has where I input a significant amount of data from my market research knowledge (2 hours filling data) *Note that you don’t necessarily need to do this, and you can start getting pretty decent customization in your content with less work (especially if you’re making use of the AI insights)
• The not-trained version only contains the very minimal information required on the onboarding process.

Hero VSL formula Sample (Not Trained VS Trained)

For the sales copywriter, I’m going to test the VSL and see if the trained and no trained shows significantly different content and try to spot if this is only a simple “fill in the blank” template instead of the promised tailored content.

For this one, I will let the AI fill the input and see if it pulls better information from the trained version than the non-trained one.

Not trained version:

Trained version:

Conclusions:

As you can see, both generated versions have an identical structure. That’s because the “Sales Copywriter” is based on fill-in-the-blank templates/scripts that are pulling info from the market research you did (or the AI-generated insights). It is far from being that disruptive right now , but at least, something different is there that makes it interesting. The output is better on the trained ones (by the data I feed the system), but the non-trained version is still very decent.

We are in front of what is a copy generator based on a template. More or less useful, depending on your case and cost. For a single payment, I can see how it could be beneficial and profitable for generating fast and affordable sales letters for agency customers (small businesses that are not going to pay you $1K for a sales letter)…

I want to believe that this is a system that will improve towards the promised direction of creating automated high-quality customized content instead of relying so much on the “fill in the blanks” templates (pulling the own info that I have provided).

The future for CrawlQ

Nobody does the market research, and it’s not because it is complicated or because they don’t know how to do it, but because it is not sexy. It is going to be almost impossible to “force” people to fill out endless forms. With a better UI / UX (the thing might improve with conversational forms and sequentially requesting the info, but it is still a lot).

If they try to market it as a tool for marketing specialists and agencies that understand the importance of doing marketing research, they might have more luck, but amateur people and moms and pops are not going to do this, period.

Still, the “generate insights” feature can help there. If you don’t have the knowledge, time or patience to put together a decent market research, the AI tool will provide you with insights that can be used now and improved gradually later. You don’t have to fill all the market research info at once. You can start using what the AI has generated for you, and once you know your market better, verify, correct and add more info.

If CrawlQ AI’s team can educate people to understand their USP while improving the software to fulfill that high-end copy, they might have a bright future.

Conclusions (My case and your possible case)

If you have been reading the whole article, you are probably 80-90% sure of what to do, but keep reading because I might surprise you with my conclusion.

As usual, the choice will be different depending on the situation, the use case, and level of expertise. This tool might be for a particular audience that might or not be you.

To me, in my circumstances, the decision is straightforward:

I gave this a try because of the promise of fully automated, high-quality content. The concept they are selling is not completely there, so the app will need many changes to fulfill my expectations. The long-form is far from that smooth experience that I expect, but the sales copy really can pull a sales letter in a couple of clicks.

The long-form for articles is doing its job (could be better and I bet they are going to put the effort in training it well).

Personally, I’m well covered with the best possible AI tools, so I don’t need another similar tool for that first part.

I have my own copy template generators for the sales copywriting module, but CrawlQ makes the customization better. As you see, it’s not a 100% match for me, but I like the concept, so I’m keeping a code to see how it evolves in the future (since it’s new, it should have room for improving). Nevertheless, it is a lifetime payment and I know it will pay off soon even if I use it only for selling the automatic sales pages that it generates to small business owners at an affordable price.

Is this something that would be suitable for you?

I can tell you that CrawlQ is worth it for some people and situations (especially because we are talking about a lifetime deal that only needs a single payment).

The “market research guide” is nice for exploring and getting familiar with market research, and you can be doing it in no time. Maybe it is not the best resource in the world, but it’s nice that they put it there.

If you don’t mind spending AI credits instead of time, then go for the “generate insights” that will pull a lot of data that you can use.

The sales-copy generator will provide you with high-quality templates that are worthy, especially for someone who doesn’t know how to write a sales page, needs something fast, and cannot wait to learn the entire process of how to write them.

Someone could even start a marketing agency and sell those sales pages, letters, VSL… to a small business (that is not going to pay $1K for the handmade copywriting service). Even if the sales letters are pretty generic right now (based on templates), when you combine them with that market research module and the AI insights, the output they generate is pretty decent. If you use it right away, it will give you a fast ROI because you’ve got a lifetime deal.

Would that justify a recurring payment? Is there some value there for non-professional copywriters/marketers? I guess some people will be happy with it and others will realize that it is not what they want/need.

CrawlQ could be an affordable single-payment help/resource for marketing research, with the advantage that it offers a good amount of AI credits that will help you generate content such as sales copywriting for your sales pages and long-form articles. I hope they can improve it at the level that it becomes an essential tool for digital marketing agencies because their concep is really fantastic.

It is not a secret that I have spent a lot of hours doing all this (filling the market research forms, finding out how the software exactly works more deeply, generating different copy samples with several tools and variables, writing and editing this article…), that’s why I would love it if you come and join me in the discussion we are having about CrawlQ and personally tell me what you think about my article! 👇

Do you have any questions, want to know me, or just want to check what others are talking about this? Join the CrawlQ discussion >>