As mentioned elsewhere here on our site, the game truck industry is plagued by one or more affiliate marketing companies, based back east but using toll free numbers and wording on their websites that make it SOUND like their local (like San Francisco Game Trucks dot com), that attempt to book parties at 1.5 to 2 times greater than what most game truck companies charge, then attempt to book a local game truck at their usual rate…of course the marketing company keeps the difference. Often, the marketing company doesn’t find any game truck company who wants to work with them, so no party gets booked. The day of the birthday party comes, no game truck comes, and the poor parents are left scrambling, trying to find out what happened. This has happened dozens of times across the country, but thankfully it hasn’t happened here on the Central Coast (at least that we know of), despite the fact that these sites do sometimes show up when you Google terms like “Monterey Game Truck”.
The good news is that our SEO (search engine optimization) efforts are paying off and these jokers are starting to get squeezed off the first page of Google. Now, usually when you use a search engine like Google to look for a local Mobile Game Theater (or game truck), you’ll see EZPZ and another game truck business up in San Jose at the top of the search results. The 3rd parties/affiliate marketers are starting to be relegated to the second page of Google results (most people won’t go past the first page).
That being said, we can’t emphasize this enough: Please watch out for these 3rd parties. They go by names like Rush Cube, Mega Fun Game Trucks, and so on. To our Santa Cruz neighbors: you’ll probably see San Francisco Game Trucks dot com come up in your search engine results for Santa Cruz Game Trucks. They are an affiliate marketer.
When in doubt, check and see if they have a local address and phone number. If you call them and sounds like you’ve reached a call center, you’re probably dealing with a 3rd party.
Affiliate marketers aren’t all bad; most provide a valuable service to companies with whom they’ve established a relationship. The nefarious companies leeching off our industry (as well as others) often take the customer’s money first, THEN attempt to reach out to local companies. They have yet to attempt to contact us (though we usually don’t answer calls from toll-free or out-of-state numbers); we will not have anything to do with them.
You can help us squeeze these companies off the first page of search engine results by clicking on our site (or other legitimate sites) when you Google “Salinas Game Truck” or “Santa Cruz Game Trailer”. Engaging with us on social media helps too! Lastly, if we’ve been fortunate to have you as a customer recently, please consider leaving a review for us! These actions may seem self-serving, but they send signals to Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other data aggregators that EZPZ Video Game Parties is a real local business.
