ad:tech San Francisco begins today and, as if to celebrate, two of the major ad networks released news about increased value they are offering publishers and advertisers. It doesn’t look as though the ad network marketplace is going to get any less complicated or less dynamic in the near future.

First, DoubleClick has made their Network Builder toolkit generally available. It’s primarily aimed at publishers who want to develop their own vertical and niche ad networks, and it provides a robust suite of network management tools including financial reporting, partner relationship management, ad system integration and partner payments.

Not to be outdone, Adify announced that following their introduction of version 4 of their platform, the Financial Times and AutoTrader will be launching their own networks. Adify now powers around 150 vertical networks and the new release adds conversion and interaction tracking to the management tools in order to provide publishers with greater flexibility in the metrics they provide to advertisers.

For publishers the opportunity to create a network of smaller but highly relevant partner sites is an important one as online audiences fragment across more and more sites while at the same time advertisers demand more reach and more accurate targeting. Adify and DoubleClick are coming at this from different directions but they’re aiming at the same place.