It's easier said then done. I have an article that got 48k views, almost all of them are external. So, I signed up for a referral program and added a link to my article. A RELEVANT link. I haven't gotten a single sale, lol. So then I used another program and replaced the old referral with a new one - the one that seemed more relevant. Zero clicks.

I mean, I'm new to referrals and I obviously have no clue how to manouver around them. You have a good point about monetizing external views, but so far I failed. :(