Case study
H&R Block achieves tax season success through innovative full-funnel Amazon Ads strategy
H&R Block worked with Amazon Ads to implement a sophisticated full-funnel strategy during the 2025 tax season, leveraging privacy-safe technology to drive brand awareness and conversions, achieving significant year-over-year (YoY) improvements.
key insights
144%
Lift in conversion rates with full-funnel media strategy
35%
YoY improvement in cost per acquisition (CPA)
2.5X
YoY reach expansion
Goals
In today's digital advertising landscape, financial services brands face a unique challenge: driving growth while maintaining strict privacy standards. H&R Block, a leader in tax preparation services, collaborated with Amazon Ads to solve this challenge during the 2025 tax season, implementing a sophisticated full-funnel strategy that respected advertiser hashed audiences while maximizing campaign impact. Despite not selling the majority of their products on Amazon, H&R Block leveraged Amazon Ads advanced suite of solutions to drive results by reaching consumers as they experienced milestone life moments like buying a home, getting married, or managing a small business.
The key to achieving H&R Block's campaign goals was building on their existing measurement strategy in Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) with the latest advertising technologies from Amazon Ads. Match ID, a new feature within Events Manager, served as the technological foundation that transformed their attribution capabilities. This tool created a privacy-enhanced bridge across the entire audience journey, allowing H&R Block to analyze and attribute ad exposure from consented conversions without sharing underlying audience insights. By seamlessly linking awareness, consideration, and conversion stages, Match ID provided a comprehensive view of the marketing funnel, laying the foundation for the campaign's full-funnel strategy.
Snapshot of H&R Block’s successful full-funnel campaign
Approach
Starting with AMC, H&R Block gained valuable insights into advertiser hashed audiences and campaign performance, powered by conversion signals from Match ID. These insights informed the activation of Brand+, an AI-powered optimization capability that simplifies brand awareness campaigns on Amazon DSP, leveraging streaming TV and online video (OLV) ads across Amazon's properties and other premium publishers.
As potential customers moved down the funnel, H&R Block leveraged Performance+, Amazon's AI-powered solution for OLV and display advertising. These campaigns automatically optimized ad delivery, reaching customers most likely to convert both on and off Amazon; with Performance+ placements helping to achieve significant CPA efficiencies YoY. The campaign then utilized custom AMC audiences for enhanced remarketing, ensuring that engaged users received timely, relevant messaging. This coordinated approach expanded reach across multiple channels, including Prime Video, OLV (including Twitch), Alexa audio, and display. AMC Path to Conversion reporting highlighted the power of a full-funnel approach.
Alice Colarusso, VP of Growth Marketing & Engagement at H&R BlockThe full-funnel strategy played out well and delivered results for H&R Block last season. We appreciate how collaborative the Amazon team has been and supportive of our growth.
Results
The comprehensive strategy delivered impressive results across key metrics, demonstrating the power of Amazon Ads for both on- and off-Amazon performance. OLV campaigns achieved a 26% improvement in CPM, while overall CPA efficiency improved by 35% YOY.1 The intelligent use of Brand+ and Performance+ expanded reach 2.5x YoY while maintaining cost efficiency, a testament to the advanced AI capabilities underpinning the campaign.2 Adding OLV to display drove a 47% lift in conversion rates.3 When Prime Video was added to the analysis, rates climbed by a further 66%.4 Most notably, the complete full-funnel strategy more than doubled conversion rates compared to display-only campaigns, delivering a 144% total increase.5 The synergy between Brand+ and Performance+ not only broadened H&R Block's reach but also significantly enhanced the efficiency of their ad spend. By reaching the right customers at the right time, the campaign reduced average frequency-per-order by 35% YoY, 6 indicating significant scaling enhancements. Custom AMC audiences also delivered 62% more efficient CPA performance (against H&R Block’s display average on Amazon DSP) during the campaign's crucial final weeks.7
These gains demonstrate the power of Amazon Ads integrated solutions—from AMC's analytical insights and audience capabilities to the AI-powered optimizations of Brand+ and Performance+—working together to deliver more precise, relevant advertising.
The campaign's success sparked increased investment by H&R Block in Amazon's advertising solutions, inspired by powerful campaign performance. Looking ahead to 2026, they're already exploring expanded awareness opportunities through Prime Video and premium placements with other leading publishers through Amazon Ads.
This story demonstrates how businesses beyond traditional digital retail can also harness the Amazon Ads suite to drive meaningful, privacy-enhanced results both on and off Amazon. By combining innovative technology with strategic full-funnel execution, H&R Block achieved their brand awareness and performance goals, while improving customer experiences with more relevant advertising.
Sources
1–7 Advertiser-provided data, US, 2025.