Big and small brands alike are trying to make sense out of their online advertising, looking to measure the results and effectiveness of various campaigns. Adometry, a Kirkland startup founded by two veterans of the Walt Disney Internet Group, John Dietz and Robert Perrier, is working on a technology to help those companies navigate the online ad maze.

Today, Adometry is getting a boost toward that goal. It has brought on a new CEO with deep roots in the Seattle tech industry, as well as some angel financing.

The company today is announcing that Jim Ewel -- who previously served as CEO of GoAhead Software and worked at Microsoft for 12 years -- has joined the startup as CEO. It also has raised about $400,000 in angel financing, potentially enough capital to propel the startup to profitability, said Dietz.

It is a tad unusual to see an entrepreneur step away from the CEO duties so early in a startup's life cycle. But Dietz said it is the right decision for the company. "I never really had my heart set on being CEO long term," he said. "I still retain control of the product vision and direction, while Jim focuses on customer acquisition."

And with Adometry's core product -- Veracity -- officially being announced today the company is looking to ramp up its sales efforts.

Adometry's product attempts to help advertisers better measure the effectiveness of display advertising campaigns, with the company saying it can help advertisers track whether ads are being placed in the proper channels and -- as a follow-up -- show the effectiveness of those campaigns .

In a way, that reminded me a bit of what Seattle's AdReady is attempting to do with their self-service online display advertising efforts. (More on what they are up to later this week).

But Dietz said the products are actually quite different.

"AdReady is about creative generation and media placement, with some basic metrics included," he said. "We sell to mostly advertisers and agencies as an independent analytics service to get more understanding about real value of their display advertising, regardless of where or how it was placed."

So, who are the competitors?

New York-based DoubleVerify -- which describes itself as an ad verification system -- is one. So is a newly-launched offering from Seattle's Mpire called AdExpose, which like Adometry helps advertisers determine which ad campaigns are running in the correct places and what is working the best.

Adometry has been working on its online ad tracking system for more than a year, and I've heard there's some bad blood between Adometry and Mpire. But there's nothing like a little competition to get the juices flowing.

It will be interesting to watch this category emerge. And there's certainly plenty of talent floating around in the Seattle area in the space, given that aQuantive was a pioneer in helping companies more effectively deliver online advertising.