Hydration brand Liquid I.V. marked its fourth straight year as a top seller during Amazon’s summer Prime Day event, taking the No. 2 spot in 2026.
It was the No. 3 most purchased product on Day 1 of Amazon’s four-day summer sales event in June, according to market research firm Numerator. Liquid I.V. then moved up to become the second most purchased product on Day 2 of the event, Numerator found.
U.S. retailers combined for about $26.4 billion in ecommerce sales altogether during Amazon Prime Day 2026, Digital Commerce 360 previously reported. The hydration brand was among the retailers to benefit from the Prime Day effect — on the Amazon marketplace and the retailer’s direct-to-consumer (DTC) site — according to Danielle Grover, senior director of ecommerce at Liquid I.V.
“Amazon, every year, changes a little bit more,” Grover told Digital Commerce 360. “And we’re seeing over time, specifically on Prime Day, Amazon is trying to get that consumer to convert faster and more frequently. So they are evolving their platform, whether that’s desktop or mobile.”
How does Liquid I.V. prepare for Amazon Prime Day sales?
Liquid I.V. sought to increase its consumer reach earlier in the Prime Day cycle, Grover said. Whether two weeks or a month before, she said, it sought to get its product “in front of those eyeballs before Amazon turns on this overdrive mode.”
That means targeting consumers shopping in the hydration category who are not necessarily buying from Liquid I.V., she said. It also means reaching consumers who aren’t even shopping in the category in the first place. Liquid I.V. seeks to anchor itself in cultural moments before the sales event to increase its brand awareness, she explained.
The planning starts two to three months ahead of time, Grover told Digital Commerce 360. Part of that planning includes deciding when to launch new products, Grover said. Implementation starts in the final month before the event. That’s when Amazon gives brands a heads up about its event, she said.
“And then we have to be ever-fluid with our budgets and be able to turn campaigns on and off when [we get] that initial notice of, ‘Okay, Prime Day is in two weeks from now or three weeks from now,’” Grover said. “Then we can automatically pull the levers of when to fuel up certain campaigns and when to not fuel up certain campaigns.”
In 2025, Liquid I.V. launched Orange Vanilla Dream. In 2026, it launched what became its top flavor of the summer, Grover said: sugar-free Ring Pop.
“That’s our build up to Prime Day,” Grover told Digital Commerce 360. “Getting those impressions, being able to retarget those consumers when that day comes. And then on the day of Prime Day, we did see Day One was the best day out of all of them. So we are seeing that consumer immediately buy when they are on Prime Day. It was the first year we’ve seen that, which was interesting and really good learning and insights to it.”
Effect of Amazon Prime Day on summer sales
Liquid I.V. also retargeted throughout the period, Grover said, not just at the outset. As part of its post-event analysis, it has been digging into its data to see how many consumers made purchases on the first day and the fourth. It is also factoring in the day of the week. The fourth day of the Prime Day sales event was on a Friday, not far before the July 4 holiday.
“How is that molding people’s buying patterns and how are those changing?” Grover said.
She referred to Prime Day as “one of the many ecommerce sale days of the summer.” To navigate those days effectively, she said Liquid I.V. has to understand which customers are buying from Amazon versus its other platforms. From there, the brand has to make sure its sales channels “work together instead of against one another.”
“It’s building out the strategy of who’s on deal when, what products are you offering, and making sure that we come up with a cohesive strategy across the board instead of an overlapping strategy in which we are fighting with one another,” Grover said.
She noted that Amazon itself was the brand’s largest sales driver during the Prime Day event. For its DTC site, Liquid I.V. focuses on the 4th of July, she added.
Also on Amazon, Grover said Liquid I.V. noticed an increase in conversion rate during the Prime Day event. She attributed that to Amazon “being very specific in where they show their ads. So while we may see impressions fluctuate and we’re paying more for more impressions, the conversion rate is much stronger because we’re targeting that audience that we know is going to convert into basket build onto Liquid I.V. in our peak summer months.”
Liquid I.V. prepares for Prime Day by using AI, AEO
Grover told Digital Commerce 360 that Liquid I.V. placed an emphasis on involving artificial intelligence (AI). It had to factor in how it could “become smarter” and show up where consumers are, she said.
That involves making plays regarding answer engine optimization (AEO) and generative engine optimization (GEO). Both terms refer to the AI extension of search engine optimization (SEO). AEO and GEO are strategies to improve brands’ rankings in AI platforms such as Google Gemini, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and Perplexity.
“How can I answer the question of ‘what do you need?’ before you know that you need it?” Grover said. “And so from an Amazon and DTC lens, it’s making sure your front end and your back end are fully optimized with specific keywords. And it’s like the old SEO view of Google Analytics, but bringing it into a new age. It’s relatively the same thing, but just titled something different.”
Liquid I.V. has found that consumers are using longtail keywords in their product searches, Grover said.
To address that, Liquid I.V. made sure the keywords it fought for were “evolved” in its product copy, she said. Similarly, it factored in images and other metadata. On the back end, she said, Liquid I.V. focused on its product detail pages (PDPs) on both its own site and on Amazon.
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