Howl has attributed its issues, at various times, to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, delayed upstream payments from merchants and a billing mishap prompted by its rebrand from Narrativ to Howl in 2022.
Delayed payments of this length are atypical in the affiliate marketing industry, which generally maintains a net-90-day payment schedule from vendor to affiliate network to publisher, according to Michael McNerney, publisher of the Martech Record.
“We work with between 15 and 20 affiliate networks,” said a second executive. “We have a massive commerce business. We don’t have these problems with any other network in any capacity.”
Howl has also at times declined to make even partial payments on the sums it owed to publishers.
“Most affiliate vendors pay the publisher as they get paid by the merchant,” said the first executive. “Howl claimed that it needed to be paid by every vendor before it could pay out even one publisher.”
In September, when the company became aware of efforts to report on its payments, Howl paid several publishers in full and set up repayment plans with others. Chen claims that 98.6% of total payments in the past year have been on time.
One publisher, still owed more than $50,000, ended its business with Howl in October. Another recently renegotiated its contract to include terms that terminate the relationship if Howl misses a payment.
Going through Howl for Samsung and Best Buy
Publishers with robust affiliate revenue businesses often work with around a dozen affiliate networks at any given time, according to McNerney.
Howl, which is considered a smaller player in the space, initially attracted the business of publishers and merchants with the promise of an innovative new technology—auction-bidding on affiliate links, which has been discontinued—and an ability to tap into different budgets within brands, according to the executives.
Its payment problems have since negated this appeal.
“By 2021, our accounting and business development teams were telling us that, at any given time, Howl was late in paying us by anywhere from three to five months,” said one executive. “It got so bad that at one point our finance team asked us to stop working with them.”
But two key merchants—Best Buy and Samsung—still work primarily with Howl, according to executives.
In the affiliate space, advertisers pay to use the affiliate network of their choice, and publishers integrate with that network if they want to work with the advertiser, said McNerney. Because of the cost, most advertisers work with just one or two networks.
