Engineering for Marketers Issue #1

One OpenAI gem, one attribution lesson, and a few tools you’ll thank me for

Jun 06, 2025

Hello Marketer,

Welcome to the first-ever edition of Engineering for Marketers. I’m genuinely glad you’re here.

Hope your week’s been alright. It’s Friday and a public holiday, one of the small perks of capitalism we won’t complain about. Lucky for me, the break landed right in the middle of my leave, so yes, I’ve been extra excited.

This newsletter is about two big things I care about:

AI in marketing (beyond the hype)
The technical side of marketing (the stuff that makes things actually work)

Now, here’s what I’ve got for you today:

A cool AI tool you probably haven’t used yet - Sora
Attribution vs Contribution - not the same thing
Tools to help you track the chaos
A few gems to check out

🤖 A Hidden Gem from OpenAI: Sora

We all know ChatGPT. But here’s something most people haven’t played with yet: Sora, OpenAI’s lesser-known but surprisingly powerful tool.

I mentioned it during a recent digital marketing session with over 300 students, and almost nobody had heard of it.

Most know Sora as a video generation model, and yes, that’s cool. But did you know it also lets you generate high-quality images directly inside ChatGPT?

How to Use It

If you have a ChatGPT Plus, Team, or Pro account, here’s how to try it:

Open a new prompt and select the “Image” option.
Enter a description of the image you want to generate.
Choose your preferred aspect ratio (3:2, 1:1, or 2:3).
Choose how many variations you want (up to 4).
Once generated, you can use the Remix option or press “R” to edit and evolve the image.

Bonus tip: Ask ChatGPT to help you write a better prompt. You’ll often get way more accurate results with less effort.

You can use it for quick mockups like social posts, presentation visuals, and early-stage campaign ideas, so you don’t always have to wait for or hunt down a designer for simple stuff (I hope no designer is reading this👀)

⚠️ A Few Limitations

It doesn’t render realistic human images well (yet).
It’s restricted to just three aspect ratios.

Still, Sora is a game-changer based on what it offers right now. In the next edition, I’ll share a workaround for the sizing issue.

Check out the example below. I asked ChatGPT for a detailed prompt and then used it on Sora to generate the image.

Prompt from ChatGPT: Create a vibrant and modern social media post designed for the Engineering for Marketers newsletter. The layout should feature a bold headline area with clean, sans-serif typography. Use a color palette inspired by engineering and technology — cool blues, deep navy, and bright accents of orange. Incorporate stylish geometric shapes and subtle circuit or blueprint patterns in the background to evoke an engineering vibe. Include space for a short call-to-action text with a button-like design element. Add minimalistic icons representing AI, marketing analytics, and digital tools, arranged neatly to complement the text without clutter. At the bottom, include the website URL: engineeringformarketers.substack.com in a clear and readable font. The overall style should be sleek, professional, and eye-catching — perfect for sharing on Instagram or LinkedIn

Result From Sora:

Let’s Talk Attribution and Contribution

If you’re still with me at this point, thank you. You’re clearly one of the real ones. We’re about to get into the technical part, and I totally get that it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. But it matters, so let’s dive in.

You’ve set up that exciting campaign. Everyone’s excited. The creative looks good. But how do you know it’s actually working? What are you looking at? What metrics are tied to your goal?

In most cases, the goal is to drive something measurable like signups, leads, or purchases. This is where attribution comes in.

What Is Attribution?

Attribution is how we determine which marketing touchpoint should receive credit for a result. Did someone sign up because of your email, Instagram ad, or webinar last week?

It matters because it helps you know what’s working so you can invest your time and budget in what’s actually delivering.

Some marketers look at the first touch, the very first time someone interacted with your brand. Others look at the last touch, the final click before conversion. Some use linear models that share the credit evenly. More advanced setups use data-driven models that learn and assign credit based on impact.

Each tells a slightly different story, but even the best attribution models don’t always tell the full truth.

What Is Contribution?

While attribution asks, “Who should get the credit?”, contribution asks, “Who actually moved the needle?”

Let’s say you ran a podcast ad. It didn’t drive immediate clicks, but later, you notice search volume for your brand increases. Or you launch an influencer campaign that doesn’t convert on its own but warms people up for a paid ad they click days later.

That’s Contribution at play. It’s about influence, not just direct action.

Why You Need Both

Attribution helps you figure out what to optimize right now for ads, budgets, or targeting. It also helps you understand the deeper, long-term value of things like branding, partnerships, or even community engagement.

Let’s say you run an influencer campaign followed by Meta ads. Attribution will likely credit Meta. However, contribution analysis will show that the influencer's work made the Meta ads perform better.

Both give you insight, just at different levels.

🧰 Tools That Help You Track Better

Here are some tools that can help you get clearer insights:

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) for basic attribution
Appsflyer is great for mobile app tracking and deeper attribution insights.
utm.io helps you generate and manage UTM links
Microsoft Clarity is a free tool for heatmaps and session recordings
Mixpanel is great for event-based analytics and funnel tracking
Supermetrics lets you pull data across platforms for dashboards
Hubspot / Customer.io combines CRM with attribution tracking

📩 In the next edition, I’ll walk through setting up one of these. If you have a preference, just reply and let me know.

📚 Helpful Resources

Ad Performance Tracker (Google Sheets): Track campaigns weekly/monthly
The Growth Handbook: Scaling Fintech in Nigeria
The PR Playbook: Doing PR on a zero or minimal budget

If this made you go ‘aha!’ don’t keep it to yourself—share it with a friend who needs a little marketing magic today.

Thanks so much for sticking with me through this first edition. I hope you found some value in these insights and tools to boost your marketing game. Remember, every campaign tells a story, but understanding how it truly works behind the scenes is what sets you apart.

I’m excited to keep sharing more tips, tools, and stories with you. If there’s anything you want me to dive into, just hit reply and let me know.

Until next time, keep experimenting and stay curious.

Made with curiosity and caffeine
Amos Feranmi

Keep the caffeine flowing