Google’s 7-11-4 Rule Tells You Exactly How To Get Clients In 2025

This is not a theory or suggestion. It’s a study of buying behavior, from Google. They found that before someone will make their decision to become a client, they need…

✅ 7 hours of engagement…

✅ Across 11 separate touchpoints…

✅ In at least 4 channels.

The shorthand for this is the 7-11-4 rule, and it’s based on Google’s research into a phenomenon they call the Zero Moment of Truth, or ZMOT. It’s the time period between first engagement and what we’d traditionally consider shopping behavior (e.g., a discovery call, or booking their first appointment).

Basically what’s happened is: a NEW STEP has been added into the buying process. 

Between first connecting with marketing/advertising and shopping, consumers have added a pre-shopping step where they either actively or passively engage with content around/about your brand and market.

THE OLD WAY: Marketing → Shopping → Buying

THE NEW WAY: Marketing → Pre-Shopping → Shopping → Buying

Think about it this way. There’s the old KLT principle of selling. People buy from people they know, like, and trust. This is simply quantifying that it takes time and interactions to build that knowledge, liking, and trust in the relationship. This has only been amplified by the infinite abundance of media and marketing we have streaming 24/7 into our pockets.

If you’re a financial advisor trying to get clients in 2025, this has serious implications.

Sure, it still happens sometimes. Someone sees an ad or marketing piece, and they request a discovery call. But it’s becoming ever-harder and more expensive to make this one-shot marketing work. 

(I’ve seen this growing challenge over the last couple years as traditional media has grown more and more expensive to get the same results.)

Today you NEED to build a system to engage and nurture the prospect in the pre-shopping process. And to move them into your sales process as soon as they’ve reached that threshold.

Bad news? It’s no longer as simple as creating one good ad, TV show, radio show, seminar mailing, etc., and running that.

Good news? Once you understand this new reality and how tools today are being built to cater to it, you can really take control and build a powerful lead and client generation system that can be booking appointments with qualified new prospects every day.

Quickly, let’s break down what Google’s 7-11-4 Rule means…

• 7 hours of engagement can include reading, watching, listening, seeing you online, seeing your ads, viewing content online, or even potentially (but likely only in the last 1-2 hours), actually speaking to people on your team.
• 11 separate touchpoints means you’re not connecting with them once and converting them. You’re giving them value at least 11 times in a way that catches and engages their attention. (There is specific content that should be used throughout these touchpoints to make them less repetitive and more effective.)
• 4 channels is perhaps the most interesting of all — think showing up in different places for the same people, including different media formats (video, text, email, online/offline workshops, visuals, etc.) across different media channels (traditional media like TV, radio, etc. as well as multiple social media networks or placements, email, direct mail, podcasts, YouTube etc.).

Notably, this can be paid or organic placements. So if you build a system to attract organic followers across multiple channels, it can serve these goals. Major ad networks can be used through a mix of on-platform tools (e.g. Meta’s earth-shaking Andromeda update was built for this new reality) and retargeting to help drive these touchpoints and engagements. It can also include a mix of online and offline media.

Or, even better, you can build a system designed to do it all. Create omnipresence. Moving paid traffic into list-building and organic followings, that can be used to drive more engagements even through additional paid traffic. And helping new leads meet the 7-11-4 Rule (and beyond!) as reliably and quickly as possible.

Long story short, if your advertising, marketing, and sales efforts are focused on the old way above, you’re a dinosaur staring at a giant space rock, hurtling towards you.

This is the new reality. Your marketing strategy must evolve.