Pulling Out Weeds Online

Seeking to milk the huge growth in online advertising, a rush of technology firms have emerged in recent years pitching an array of techniques for buying, targeting and measuring digital ads.

But the raft of newcomers has created a complex landscape that has left marketers confused. Now a series of specialized companies are pitching products to simplify the landscape by helping marketers navigate the online-advertising world. WPP Group PLC online-ad firm 24/7 Real Media recently started promoting a product that helps marketers determine which ad-technology start-ups to work with to make the best use of ad spending. Several other companies that had specialized in one segment of the business, such as buying search ads, are broadening their offerings to other areas, such as social-networking sites and mobile advertising. Digital-ad shop IgnitionOne, a unit of Dentsu Inc., is rolling out a service that lets marketers buy, measure and boost the performance of ads that appear on search engines, along the border of a Web page and on social-networking site Facebook.