RELX PLC (RELX): Marketing Mix Analysis [Dec-2025 Updated]

You're looking at a data and analytics powerhouse, so let's map out the four P's for RELX PLC, a company built on high-margin, recurring revenue. Honestly, after seeing their first nine months of 2025 results-with underlying revenue growth hitting 7% across the board-it's clear their strategic pivot is paying off handsomely. This isn't just about legacy publishing; it's about embedding AI-powered decision tools, which is why segments like Legal are accelerating with 9% growth while Risk pushes ahead by 8%. To really understand how RELX PLC captures this value, you need to see the marketing mix that supports this shift. Below, I've mapped out the Product, Place, Promotion, and Price that underpin this data and analytics powerhouse.

RELX PLC (RELX) - Marketing Mix: Product

The product element for RELX PLC centers on its portfolio of information-based analytics and decision tools, which are increasingly embedded with artificial intelligence to deliver enhanced customer value across its four operating segments.

Risk Solutions

This segment provides data analytics products focused on fraud prevention, identity verification, and compliance. The product suite is designed to assist customers in evaluating and predicting risk, driving operational efficiency. For the first nine months of 2025, this division achieved an underlying revenue growth of 8%. In 2024, the Risk division generated 34% of RELX's total sales, and it contributed 38% of the group's 2024 adjusted operating profit. LexisNexis Risk Solutions reported revenues of £3,245m for the year ended December 31, 2024. Within this, the Business Services vertical, which covers financial crime compliance, represented around 45% of its revenue in 2024.

The core products here are data-driven decision tools, with strong growth in Financial Crime Compliance and digital Fraud & Identity solutions. The segment's adjusted operating margin exceeded 35% in 2024, a testament to the scalability of these analytical products.

Scientific, Technical & Medical (STM)

The STM segment's primary product is the publication of Elsevier journals and databases, forming a core subscription business for academic and research professionals. For the first nine months of 2025, this segment delivered underlying revenue growth of 5%. In 2024, the STM arm had revenue of £3.05bn and generated an adjusted operating profit of £1.17bn, resulting in an adjusted operating margin of 38.4%. A significant portion of this revenue, around 40%, comes from databases, tools, and electronic reference products, which saw strong growth in the first nine months of 2025. The product offering is evolving with the introduction of a next-generation end-to-end AI researcher solution.

Legal

The Legal segment offers LexisNexis legal and business information and software solutions, heavily focused on AI-enabled platforms to revolutionize legal workflows. This segment posted an underlying revenue growth of 9% for the first nine months of 2025. In 2024, the Legal division accounted for 20% of RELX's total sales and contributed 13% of the group's adjusted operating profit. Key products include the Lexis+ AI integrated generative AI platform and the Protégé AI legal assistant, which saw rapid growth in usage. The segment's operating profit grew by 11% in 2024, with its revenue contribution in Q1 2025 noted at 20%.

Exhibitions (RX)

The Exhibitions business, operating under RX Global, manages a global portfolio of face-to-face and digital events that help customers connect and complete transactions. For the first half of 2025, this business generated revenues of £581m, with underlying growth of 8%, and saw its adjusted operating profit grow by 9% to £234m. In 2024, the division's revenue was £1.2 billion, with an underlying growth of 11%, and its adjusted operating profit reached £398 million, a 31% increase year-over-year. In 2024, RX ran 282 face-to-face events across 25 countries, serving 41 industry sectors, and welcomed over 6m participants. Current operational scope suggests RX organizes nearly 350 events per year. The product experience is enhanced by digital tools, such as the Mercury event registration system, which was deployed at 100 events to recommend exhibitors to visitors using attendee data.

Focus on AI-driven decision tools embedded in customer workflows

The overarching product strategy across RELX PLC is the embedding of AI-driven analytics and decision tools directly into customer workflows to enhance value and drive higher-quality growth. This strategic shift is a key driver across all segments. The group's overall electronic revenue grew by 7% in the first half of 2025. The company has a stated average capital expenditure (Capex) target of approximately 5% of revenue dedicated to organic development, which supports the continuous build and improvement of these big data, analytics, and technology platforms. For example, the Risk segment leverages AI and Machine Learning to deliver actionable intelligence, and the Legal segment uses generative AI assistants to automate tasks.

The product portfolio composition is shifting towards these higher-growth analytics and decision tools, which is reflected in the group's overall underlying revenue growth of 7% for the first nine months of 2025.

The key product offerings and their recent performance metrics are summarized below:

The company's commitment to product evolution is further evidenced by its planned average acquisition consideration of approximately £400m.

RELX PLC (RELX) - Marketing Mix: Place

The Place strategy for RELX PLC centers on the digital delivery of proprietary information and analytics, ensuring global accessibility while maintaining a strong physical presence for its Exhibitions division. You see this in the revenue concentration and the format of delivery.

Geographically, the distribution of RELX PLC's business is heavily weighted toward North America. For the first half of 2025, the revenue split by geography showed North America accounting for 60% of total revenue.

This concentration reflects the primary distribution channel: direct-to-customer (B2B) engagement via proprietary digital platforms. The company sells its solutions directly, often through dedicated sales teams or its own digital portals. The dominance of digital delivery is clear when looking at revenue format for the first half of 2025.

The high-margin, recurring revenue model is fundamentally tied to digital access, evidenced by the revenue breakdown by format for H1 2025:

• Electronic revenue represented 84% of total revenue.
• Face-to-face revenue accounted for 12% of total revenue.

Furthermore, the revenue type highlights the subscription focus, which provides strong revenue visibility. For H1 2025, the split was:

• Subscription revenue was 54% of the total.
• Transactional revenue (including long-term contracts with volumetric elements) was 46%.

For the Legal and Scientific, Technical & Medical (STM) segments, Europe remains a key market, contributing 20% of overall group revenue in H1 2025. The structural presence in key European nations is deep, with significant legal and STM subsidiaries noted in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, such as Elsevier B.V. and various RELX Holdings B.V. entities.

The Exhibitions segment, while smaller in revenue format share at 12% face-to-face in H1 2025, maintains a global physical distribution footprint. This segment uses physical venues globally, supplemented by digital tools. For context on its scale:

The segment actively uses digital tools, such as the Mercury event registration system, deployed at 100 events to recommend exhibitors to visitors, blending the physical and virtual/hybrid experience.

RELX PLC (RELX) - Marketing Mix: Promotion

Promotion for RELX PLC centers on targeted engagement, reflecting its business-to-business and business-to-government focus, rather than mass-market campaigns. This approach is evidenced by the strong performance across its specialized segments.

• - Direct sales force model focused on large enterprise and institutional contracts.
• - Content marketing and thought leadership via proprietary journals and white papers.
• - Cross-selling across the four major business segments (e.g., Risk to Legal clients).
• - Hosting industry-leading conferences and trade shows through the RX division.
• - Minimal mass-market advertising; promotion is highly targeted and relationship-based.

The success of this targeted promotion is visible in the segment performance for the first nine months of 2025, where underlying revenue growth reached 7% group-wide. Specifically, the Legal segment posted an underlying growth of 9%, driven by the roll-out of Lexis+AI and positive customer reception for Protégé, a next-generation generative AI assistant. The Risk division, which accounted for 34% of 2024 revenue, showed strong underlying growth of 8%, supported by Financial Crime Compliance and digital Fraud & Identity solutions, indicating effective promotion to institutional clients.

Content marketing underpins the Scientific, Technical & Medical (STM) segment, which saw 5% underlying revenue growth in the first nine months of 2025. This growth is supported by very strong growth in article submissions, suggesting high engagement with their research content ecosystem. The overall group strategy emphasizes the shift toward higher growth analytics and decision tools, which are promoted through demonstrating enhanced customer value.

The Exhibitions division, RX, is a direct promotional channel through event hosting. For the first half of 2025, this division generated revenues of £581 million, representing underlying growth of 8%. This follows a strong 2024 where Exhibitions revenue reached £1.1bn, up 17% from the prior year. The division's H1 2025 adjusted operating profit grew 9% to £234 million.

The relationship-based model is further supported by the company's scale and investment in its people. RELX PLC employs more than 36,000 people, with over 40% located in North America, facilitating deep customer understanding and relationship management across its global footprint. The success of the overall strategy is reflected in the H1 2025 results, where the group achieved an adjusted operating profit of £1,652 million on revenues of £4,741 million, leading to an improved group adjusted operating margin of 34.8%.

Cross-segment synergy promotion is implied by the overall group trajectory, where Legal (20% of 2024 revenue) and Risk (34% of 2024 revenue) both showed strong growth in 2025. The company also actively manages its capital structure, which can be seen as a signal of confidence to the market, completing £1,000 million of its announced £1,500 million share buyback program in the first half of 2025, with shares repurchased at an average price of 3,923p.

RELX PLC (RELX) - Marketing Mix: Price

You're looking at the pricing structure for RELX PLC, which is heavily weighted toward securing long-term, predictable cash flows. This isn't about one-off sales; it's about embedding their analytics into customer workflows.

The core of the pricing model is predominantly subscription-based pricing with multi-year contracts for stability. This approach locks in customers and provides a high degree of revenue visibility, which is a key feature for investors. For instance, in the first half of 2025, RELX PLC reported total revenue of £4,741m, with underlying revenue growth at 7%, demonstrating the strength of this recurring model.

The strategy employed is clearly value-based pricing, reflecting the mission-critical nature of the data and analytics provided across segments like Legal and Risk. You see this reflected in the profitability, with the group adjusted operating margin improving to 34.8% in H1 2025. The pricing reflects the enhanced value delivered by AI-enabled tools, such as the 9% underlying revenue growth in the Legal segment, driven by Lexis+ AI.

To maintain and grow this revenue base, annual price escalators are built into many contracts, ensuring consistent revenue growth. While the specific escalator percentage isn't public, the outcome is evident in the profit growth outpacing revenue growth: underlying adjusted operating profit grew 9% in H1 2025 against 7% revenue growth.

The stickiness of the offering is a major pricing enabler. The Legal and STM segments maintain high renewal rates, often exceeding 95%. This high retention supports the value-based pricing, as customers are clearly finding the cost justified by the utility of the services. For context on segment performance driving this pricing power, here are the underlying revenue growth figures for the first nine months of 2025:

For the Exhibitions business, the pricing mechanism shifts slightly. Exhibitions pricing is event-specific, based on booth space and sponsorship tiers. This segment also shows strong pricing power, with underlying revenue growth of 8% in H1 2025 and margins improving to 40.3%. This suggests successful upselling on sponsorship and space, a form of dynamic pricing tied to event demand.

The overall pricing posture is one of premium positioning, supported by continuous investment in technology, which allows RELX PLC to command higher prices for its analytics over legacy print offerings. For example, electronic revenue grew 7% in H1 2025, offsetting print decline.

Finance: draft 13-week cash view by Friday.