Howl's Creator Business Finds a New Home, and Perhaps a Payment System

In the affiliate commerce business, as in most businesses, it helps if the checks clear.

Howl, a commerce platform that connects content creators to retailers and takes a cut of the resulting transactions, has quietly sold its creator division to Connexity, the commerce operation owned by the publicly traded advertising company Taboola. The sale, which closed in August and was confirmed by representatives of both companies, was modest enough in financial terms that Taboola was not required to disclose it in its quarterly earnings.

What Connexity acquired, however, came with certain complications. According to publishers and creators who worked with Howl, the company had fallen behind on payments — in one case, according to the head of affiliate revenue at a major publisher, to the tune of around $60,000.

"They apparently still owed me a bit of money, which I finally got paid — over a year later," said one publishing executive, who noted that Howl had made resolving outstanding balances a priority in connection with the sale. Connexity has since paid off the balances Howl owed to creators, according to a person familiar with the matter.

(One imagines that "we know payments have been a pain point" ranks among the more delicate ways to describe owing people money.)

Howl, which was founded in 2017 under the name Narrativ, originally focused on powering publishers' affiliate businesses before rebranding in 2022 to chase the social commerce and creator markets. Connexity plans to fold the acquired business into its own creator affiliate operation, ShopYourLikes, and is now courting the brands Howl had been working with.

Li Haslett Chen, Howl's founder, said the company would continue operating as it evaluates its next move. "We are exploring the opportunity to innovate with big platforms as the future of AI-native commerce is unfolding," Ms. Chen said.

The future, in other words, remains unwritten. The back payments, at least, appear to have been addressed.

Original story published in adweek.com: "Affiliate Firm Howl Quietly Sells Creator Business to Taboola's Commerce Firm"