EP299 | How to Build a Brand That Speaks to Robots and Humans with Susan Keplinger | Force of Nature

Today on the show, we have Susan Keplinger, CEO of Force of Nature, a boutique performance marketing shop behind the growth of brands like Ring, Oofos, and other category leaders. With experience building data-driven growth engines across e-commerce and DTC, Suzanne has helped companies shift from chaotic marketing to orchestrated, scalable systems.

In this episode, we uncover why the future of performance marketing isn’t about hacking audiences or chasing the “one winning creative”—but building portfolio-driven creative systems, trusting your data, and showing up clearly for both humans and algorithms.

We explore why Google and Meta still dominate the ecosystem, why clean data is the new competitive edge, and how brands should think about programmatic everything—from ads to email to retargeting.

We also discuss how Suzanne built the original performance infrastructure at Ring, how brands like Oofos leverage their “growth signal system,” and why the best-performing companies today treat robots as part of their audience.

Finally, we dig deep into retention: why 10 customers leaving is the same as your 11th leaving, why the “leaky bucket” kills great brands, and how to know when it's time to stop relying on founder intuition — and start trusting the data.

As always, I’d love to hear from you. You can email me directly at [e-mail], and don’t forget to follow us on X.

Churn FM is sponsored by Vitally, the all-in-one Customer Success Platform.