International Journal of Research in Marketing: Scopus, Metrics, Scope and Submission Guide

Quick Answer: What Is the International Journal of Research in Marketing?

IJRM is a quarterly, double-anonymized peer-reviewed marketing journal published by Elsevier/North-Holland for the European Marketing Academy. Its audience includes marketing scholars, practitioners such as marketing research and consulting professionals, and policymakers. The journal welcomes rigorous conceptual, empirical and methodological work when the contribution is clearly relevant to marketing and capable of moving the field forward.

For journal-selection purposes, researchers should look beyond a single metric. Confirm that the manuscript fits IJRM’s aims, that the contribution is sufficiently novel and important, that the methods can withstand expert review, and that the paper can comply with the current author instructions. Authors working under university rules should also reconfirm the live Scopus status, reporting-year quartile and any required Web of Science/JCR information immediately before submission.

Key Takeaways

• Publisher and society: Elsevier publishes IJRM; it is the official journal of the European Marketing Academy.
• Identifiers: Print ISSN 0167-8116; online ISSN 1873-8001; Scopus Source ID 22833.
• Indexing: Elsevier lists Scopus and Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), among other services.
• Peer review: Double anonymized, with suitable papers typically sent to at least two independent reviewers.
• Submission limit: The current author guide states a maximum of 50 pages, inclusive of the main manuscript components.
• Open access: Gold OA is available for an APC; a subscription publishing route is also available without an author publication fee.
• Fit standard: IJRM expects original, rigorous, marketing-relevant work with a meaningful contribution, not merely small theoretical or methodological extensions.

International Journal of Research in Marketing Information at a Glance

Metric note: journal metrics update on different schedules. Elsevier’s public journal page currently displays a CiteScore of 13.7 and Impact Factor of 7.5, while an institutional research portal reports newer 2025 Scopus metrics. Always record the metric year and source when using these values in a PhD, promotion, funding or institutional document.

What This Page Covers

• IJRM aims, scope and research themes
• Scopus and major indexing information
• CiteScore, SJR, SNIP, quartile and Impact Factor interpretation
• Article types and manuscript fit
• Submission format, highlights, abstract and keywords
• Double-anonymized peer review and editorial screening
• Open access, APC and subscription publishing options
• Ethics, AI disclosure and publication-readiness checks

Methodology and Source Note

This profile was prepared from the journal’s official ScienceDirect pages, Elsevier’s Guide for Authors and Journal Insights, the official editorial-board page, the supplied Scopus Source ID, and institutional reporting used only where a newer Scopus metric was not visible on the publisher page. Current policies, metrics, fees, editorial roles and database status can change, so the official journal and database records should be reconfirmed before submission.

Useful official references include the IJRM journal homepage, Guide for Authors, Journal Insights, editorial board, and the Scopus source profile.

International Journal of Research in Marketing Aims and Scope

IJRM describes itself as an international journal for marketing academics and practitioners and states that its purpose is to contribute to the marketing discipline through original research that advances marketing knowledge and techniques. Its orientation is intentionally broad within marketing, but the breadth should not be mistaken for low selectivity about contribution. The journal emphasizes innovative and potentially pathbreaking work and seeks research that can stimulate future scholarship or influence practice.

For authors, the central scope question is therefore not only “Is this about marketing?” but “What does this study change in marketing knowledge?” A technically sophisticated paper can still be a weak fit if its theoretical or substantive relevance to marketing is peripheral. Conversely, interdisciplinary work can be attractive when the paper imports ideas, data or methods from another discipline and uses them to answer an important marketing question.

Research themes that can plausibly fit IJRM

Recent issues and calls for papers show a field that includes consumer decision making, branding and brand safety, digital environments, marketing analytics, artificial intelligence and synthetic data, advertising, pricing, customer engagement, innovation, channels, subscription markets and other contemporary marketing problems. The journal also publishes work with behavioural, econometric, computational and other methodological traditions, provided the methods serve a meaningful marketing contribution.

What may be a weaker fit?

The publisher’s scope explicitly cautions that replications and minor methodological or theoretical improvements will generally not be publishable in IJRM, even though they can be valuable scholarly contributions elsewhere. A manuscript may therefore be at risk of desk rejection when the contribution is incremental, the marketing relevance is underdeveloped, the theory does not explain why the result matters, or the evidence cannot support the strength of the claims.

Journal Objectives and Scholarly Positioning

IJRM’s scholarly role is to provide a high-quality outlet for research that develops marketing knowledge and techniques. That positioning creates a dual expectation: manuscripts should be academically rigorous enough for specialist reviewers while also making clear why the findings matter to the marketing discipline. The stated audience includes scholars, research and consulting professionals and policymakers, so authors benefit from explaining the practical or policy significance of their contribution where the study supports it.

The journal has published continuously since Volume 1 in 1984 and currently produces four issues per year. Its long archive and society affiliation make it an established specialist marketing outlet rather than a broad business-management journal.

Indexing, Scopus Status and Journal Visibility

Elsevier’s journal insights page lists IJRM in Scopus and the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI). It also references SCImago Journal Rank and SNIP metrics and lists the Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC). The supplied Scopus Source Record ID is 22833.

For a PhD or university requirement, “Scopus indexed” should not be treated as a permanent label. Institutions may require that the journal be active in Scopus on the submission date, publication date or evaluation date, and some use a specific quartile year. Open the live source page and keep a dated screenshot or institutional record if your policy requires evidence.

IJRM Metrics: CiteScore, SJR, SNIP, Quartile and Impact Factor

A university research portal reports 2025 Scopus metrics of CiteScore 15.4, SJR 3.734 and SNIP 2.613. Another institutional journal guide reports the 2024 Marketing category as Q1. Elsevier’s public IJRM page currently displays a CiteScore of 13.7 and Impact Factor of 7.5, which appears to reflect an earlier reporting cycle than the newer institutional Scopus metric.

These numbers serve different purposes. CiteScore is a Scopus-based citation metric; SJR weights citations according to source prestige; SNIP normalizes citation impact by field; and the Journal Impact Factor is a Clarivate/JCR metric. A “Q1” statement is meaningful only with its database, subject category and year. Researchers should avoid combining metrics from different years into a single claim that suggests they were released together.

Article Types and Research Formats

Research articles are the core scholarly format visible across current issues. IJRM also announced Registered Reports as a journal section in 2024, creating a route in which the research question and proposed methods can be evaluated before the study is completed. The journal publishes editorials, special-issue material and other editorial content, but those should not automatically be treated as standard author-submission categories unless the current submission system explicitly offers them.

Authors targeting a special issue should read the specific call for papers because topic boundaries, deadlines and guest-editor expectations may differ from regular submissions. A special-issue theme does not remove the journal’s underlying quality and fit standards.

Who Should Consider Publishing in IJRM?

Manuscript and Submission Requirements

IJRM participates in Elsevier’s “Your Paper Your Way” approach for new submissions, which allows authors to submit a single Word or PDF manuscript suitable for refereeing. The journal’s current guide nevertheless sets several concrete requirements that should be checked before upload.

For initial submission, the journal asks authors to place tables and figures with captions in their proper positions in the manuscript text. The guide notes a different file-handling instruction for papers conditionally accepted or accepted with minor revisions, so revised authors should follow the latest decision-letter and guide instructions rather than reusing the initial-submission package unchanged.

Double-Anonymized Peer Review

IJRM operates a double-anonymized review process. The editor first assesses whether a submission is suitable for the journal. Papers that pass this editorial stage are typically sent to a minimum of two independent expert reviewers for scientific evaluation, after which the editor makes the publication decision.

The anonymization requirement has practical consequences. Authors should prepare a title page containing names, affiliations, acknowledgements, declarations and corresponding-author details, while the main manuscript should omit identifying information. Self-citations should be written in a way that does not unnecessarily reveal identity. Files, acknowledgements, supplementary materials and tracked changes should also be checked for identifying metadata before upload.

Elsevier’s journal insights page displays 11 days to first decision, 78 days to decision after review, 461 days from submission to acceptance and 3 days from acceptance to online publication. These are descriptive journal-level indicators, not guaranteed turnaround times for an individual submission.

Open Access, Copyright and Publication Fees

IJRM supports both open-access and subscription publishing. Elsevier currently displays a gold open-access APC of USD 3,870 excluding taxes, with possible reductions depending on the author’s circumstances or agreements. Under the subscription route, the journal insights page states that no publication fee is charged to authors and the article is available to subscribers.

Because institutional transformative agreements, country-based arrangements and publisher pricing can change, authors should verify the amount shown during submission rather than budgeting solely from a saved web page. On acceptance, authors complete the applicable publishing or license agreement.

Publication Ethics and Responsible Use of AI

The IJRM Guide for Authors incorporates Elsevier’s publishing-ethics requirements. Authors must disclose relevant financial and personal relationships, ensure the work is not under consideration elsewhere, obtain permissions for copyrighted material, identify funding appropriately and follow authorship rules. Elsevier also states that submitted work may be checked with Crossref Similarity Check or other originality-detection tools.

The current guide allows authors to use generative AI or AI-assisted tools in manuscript preparation with human oversight, but it requires a disclosure when such tools have been used beyond basic grammar, spelling or reference checking. Authors remain responsible for accuracy, originality, source verification, privacy and intellectual-property compliance. AI tools must not be listed as authors. The journal also states that reviewers and editors should not use generative AI tools in peer review where confidentiality would be compromised under Elsevier’s current policy.

How to Decide Whether IJRM Fits Your Manuscript

1. Define the marketing contribution in one sentence. If the contribution cannot be stated without falling back on the method or dataset alone, the paper may need stronger positioning.
2. Compare with recent IJRM articles. Read several recent papers that are close in topic or method and ask whether your work creates a similarly substantial reason for marketing scholars to pay attention.
3. Test novelty against the scope. The journal explicitly signals that minor extensions and replications are generally insufficient, so identify what changes in theory, evidence, method or managerial understanding.
4. Check methodological credibility. Reviewers should be able to see a transparent path from research question to design, analysis and inference.
5. Check length and submission mechanics. A strong study can still be delayed if it exceeds the 50-page limit, omits highlights, exposes author identity or lacks required declarations.
6. Confirm institutional eligibility. If your PhD or employer requires current Scopus, a specific quartile or JCR status, verify the live database record before submission.

How to Prepare a Stronger IJRM-Aligned Manuscript

As a practical publication-readiness step, begin with the contribution rather than formatting. The introduction should make the problem, gap, significance and contribution easy to identify. The theoretical development should do more than catalogue prior findings; it should explain why the proposed relationships or mechanisms matter. Methods and analyses should be reported with enough transparency for reviewers to assess validity, and the discussion should distinguish what the evidence supports from broader speculation.

Because IJRM reaches both academic and practitioner audiences, managerial or policy implications should emerge from the study rather than appear as generic recommendations. A contribution becomes more convincing when the abstract, introduction, results and conclusion tell the same intellectual story without overstating certainty.

Common Reasons a Manuscript May Be Unsuitable

No public checklist can predict an editorial decision, and IJRM does not publish a formula for acceptance. Still, the journal’s scope and author instructions support several practical risk signals: limited novelty, weak marketing relevance, insufficient theoretical or methodological rigor, poor clarity, failure to demonstrate why the findings matter, excessive manuscript length, and noncompliance with anonymization or required submission files.

The journal does not publicly state an acceptance rate on the official insights page reviewed for this guide. It would therefore be misleading to estimate one from third-party websites or to use an unofficial rate as if it were a publisher statistic.

How Contentxprtz Can Support Publication Readiness

Preparing for IJRM can involve more than grammar correction. Authors may need to strengthen the clarity of the contribution, improve argument flow, tighten academic English, check consistency across hypotheses and results, review table and figure presentation, align references, prepare a cover letter, or make sure the manuscript package follows the journal’s current instructions.

Contentxprtz can provide ethical support through manuscript editing, research-paper proofreading, formatting and referencing support, journal-selection guidance and publication-readiness review. The author remains responsible for the research, claims, sources, ethics and final submission.

Summary: International Journal of Research in Marketing

The International Journal of Research in Marketing is an established Elsevier marketing journal and the official journal of the European Marketing Academy. It is indexed in Scopus under Source ID 22833 and is also listed by Elsevier in SSCI. The journal prioritizes original, rigorous and consequential marketing research, uses double-anonymized peer review, publishes four issues annually, and supports both subscription and gold open-access routes.

Researchers should use current database records when documenting metrics: newer institutional reporting lists 2025 Scopus values of CiteScore 15.4, SJR 3.734 and SNIP 2.613, while Elsevier’s journal page currently displays CiteScore 13.7 and Impact Factor 7.5. Before submission, authors should reconfirm the current Scopus/JCR status, APC and editorial guidance, then assess whether the manuscript offers the level of novelty, rigor and marketing relevance that IJRM explicitly seeks.

Conclusion

IJRM is a demanding specialist outlet whose appeal comes from more than indexing or a high citation metric. The stronger reason to consider it is alignment between a consequential marketing question, a rigorous research design and a contribution that can matter to the marketing discipline. Authors who meet that standard should then treat submission preparation as part of research quality: follow the 50-page limit, prepare highlights, anonymize correctly, verify references and declarations, and check the live journal guidance before upload.

Contentxprtz can support that preparation through ethical editing, proofreading, journal formatting and readiness review. It cannot control peer review or editorial decisions and does not guarantee acceptance or publication.