Belgium Google ad probe 2026: creative agencies

What the BCA investigation actually means for your agency

On February 27, 2026, the Belgian Competition Authority (BCA) launched a formal investigation into Google's online advertising practices. The core allegations: abuse of dominant market position, unfair pricing, and opaque intermediary fees buried inside the ad tech stack.

If you're running programmatic display, video, or search campaigns for clients through Google's ecosystem, this probe touches your daily work directly.

The BCA is scrutinizing how Google operates across multiple layers simultaneously: as an ad space seller, an advertiser service provider, and a pricing intermediary. That's not a coincidence. It's the same structure that lets Google capture 30 to 40% of advertiser budgets as hidden "take rates" without your clients ever seeing a line item for it.

This isn't Belgium acting alone either. It builds directly on the European Commission's September 2025 decision fining Google €2.95 billion for self-preferencing in publisher ad servers and ad-buying tools. The EC required remedies within 60 days to end conflicts of interest in the ad supply chain. Belgium is now applying that same pressure locally, under intensified 2026 enforcement of the Digital Markets Act.

The stakes are real: the BCA can impose fines of up to 10% of Google's global turnover (roughly €25 billion), and it can impose interim measures that disrupt your active campaigns before the probe even concludes.

How much of your client's budget is actually disappearing?

This is the question the BCA probe is forcing into the open, and it's one you should be asking yourself right now.

A Brussels-based creative agency specializing in video campaigns for retail brands reported to the BCA in early 2026 that Google's DV360 was routing approximately 70% of their €200,000 quarterly programmatic buys back through Google's own AdX supply-side platform. The result: effective CPMs inflated by 15 to 20%, driven by hidden take rates of 30 to 40%.

That's not a rounding error. On a €50,000 monthly client budget, that's up to €12,500 disappearing into Google's stack with no transparent reporting to show for it.

The pattern is consistent across the EU. Following the EC's 2025 ad tech ruling, Paris-based communications firm Hopscotch shifted 25% of Google spend to independent SSPs and DSPs like Xandr, citing self-preferencing that had previously captured 35% of budgets in fees. The result: €1.2 million in annual savings redirected to creative production.

A Dutch agency group in Haarlem, following a similar probe by the Netherlands ACM, diversified to The Trade Desk and saw:

Ad waste reduced by 18%
Display campaign ROI improve from 3.2x to 4.1x
Average cost per click drop by 12%

These aren't outliers. According to a 2026 FEPBE survey of 120 Belgian agencies, 65% of agency revenue is tied to Google-dependent channels. That's a concentration risk that the BCA probe is now making impossible to ignore.

Why this probe hits creative agencies harder than media buyers

Pure media buying shops have always had some incentive to track fee efficiency. But for creative and communication agencies in Belgium, the ad tech stack was often treated as infrastructure, not strategy. You focused on the campaign concept, the content, the brand story. The plumbing was Google's problem.

That's exactly the dynamic the BCA probe is now exposing as a liability.

When opaque pricing hides true performance attribution, you can't clearly demonstrate outcome-based value to your clients. You can't justify a €20,000 monthly retainer when the C-suite buyer sees "we ran ads on Google" and a blended ROAS number that Google itself calculated. You look like a vendor, not a strategic partner, because the tools you're using are designed to obscure the value you're adding.

An Antwerp agency we're aware of audited their Google Ads and DV360 stack in Q1 2026 after the BCA announcement. They discovered their effective take rate was running at 28% of client spend. After diversifying a portion of budget to The Trade Desk, their net margins improved from 18% to 28%. More importantly, they could now show clients a fee breakdown dashboard that made their strategic value visible and defensible.

That's the shift the probe is inadvertently forcing: from opaque execution to transparent, outcome-led partnership.

What compliance risks should you actually be worried about?

The BCA probe creates three distinct risk categories for creative agencies in Belgium.

Operational disruption risk. The BCA can impose interim measures before the investigation concludes. Based on the 2025 EC cases, approximately 40% of probed agencies faced two-week disruptions to their ad tech access, costing an average of €50,000 in lost billings. If you're mid-flight on a DV360 campaign when interim measures hit, you need an alternative ready.

Client contract exposure. If your client contracts don't include clauses about ad tech diversification or fee transparency, you're carrying liability for opaque pricing that isn't yours to carry. When a client asks why 35% of their budget never reached a publisher, your contract needs to show you disclosed the risk and had a mitigation plan.

Competitive positioning risk. Larger network agencies and boutique consultancies are already using DMA compliance and fee transparency as a pitch differentiator. If you're not addressing this proactively, you're handing them a talking point in your next competitive pitch.

How to audit your ad stack and reduce exposure now

You don't need to wait for the BCA probe to conclude before taking action. Here's a practical sequence that Belgian creative agencies can start this week.

Step 1: Run a take rate audit (one to two days)

Export the last six months of Google Ads and DV360 data using Google Ads Editor (free). Calculate your effective take rate: total spend minus publisher payout, divided by total spend. If you're above 30%, you have a problem worth documenting. Use the Google Ads Transparency Center for fee breakdown data, which is now DMA-mandated.

Step 2: Test one alternative DSP (week one)

Allocate 20% of your next campaign budget to a non-Google platform. The two most relevant options for Belgian creative agencies right now:

The Trade Desk: Independent DSP with transparent auctions, strong video and display formats, and roughly 10% lower CPMs on EU inventory compared to DV360. Minimum spend around €25,000 per month. A 15% ROI lift versus Google has been reported in 2026 FEPBE data.
Adform: EU-based (Danish HQ), GDPR-native, with strong native and connected TV creative formats. Minimum around €10,000 per month. A Brussels creative firm cut their effective fees by 18% after switching a portion of spend.

Step 3: Build a visible reporting layer (week two)

This is where compliance work becomes positioning work. Tools like Databox (free tier available, Pro at approximately €59 per user per month in Belgium) let you aggregate Google and alternative platform data into a single dashboard. Agencies using outcome visualization dashboards in pitches are seeing 27% higher win rates on retainer proposals, according to 2026 EU agency benchmarks.

Step 4: Update client contracts

Add explicit clauses covering ad tech diversification options and fee transparency reporting. You can price this as a one-time audit service at around €2,500, which typically returns three to five times that value in retained business and avoided disputes.

Step 5: Monitor BCA developments

Subscribe to the BCA newsletter at bca.belgium.be and set Google Alerts for "BCA Google ad probe." If your agency has experienced opaque pricing issues, the BCA does accept complaints from market participants.

Which tools actually help with compliance and diversification?

Beyond The Trade Desk and Adform, two tools are worth highlighting specifically for the compliance dimension:

BeeKeeper AI (from €99 per user per month, five user minimum) overlays your Google and DV360 data with a fee transparency AI layer that flags antitrust risk signals. It has Belgian integration and automates the kind of audit work that was previously taking mid-size agencies 12 or more hours per week, equivalent to roughly €4,000 per month in staff time.

Google Ads Transparency Center remains essential as a free baseline. It's now DMA-mandated and was used by 60% of agencies involved in the 2025 EC probe cases. It won't give you cross-platform export, but it's your first line of documentation if the BCA comes knocking.

The agencies that diversified following the EC's 2025 ruling saw 15 to 20% ad efficiency gains, translating to €100,000 to €300,000 in annual savings on a €2 million spend base. That's enough to fund two junior creatives, a new positioning push, or a proper website overhaul.

Turning a compliance challenge into a positioning advantage

Here's the thing most Belgian creative agencies are missing: the BCA probe isn't just a risk to manage. It's a brief window to differentiate.

Right now, most of your competitors are either ignoring this or panicking. Neither is a good look in front of a CFO or CMO who just read about the investigation in De Tijd. If you walk into a pitch in the next three months with a clear story about fee transparency, DMA-compliant ad strategies, and outcome-based reporting, you're speaking a language that C-suite buyers suddenly care about.

That's exactly the kind of strategic positioning shift we help agencies execute at Luniq. The agencies we work with in the creative and communications sector don't just need a better-looking website. They need their digital presence to reflect the strategic value they already deliver, but struggle to articulate.

If your current site still leads with "we create campaigns that connect," it's not going to help you close a €25,000 monthly retainer with a client who's now asking hard questions about ad tech transparency and ROI accountability.

We've seen agencies in Belgium use moments like this probe to reposition entirely: from execution partners to strategic advisors on paid media accountability. The website is often the first place that story either lands or falls flat.

If you're ready to make that shift, see how we help creative and communication agencies build authority online, or explore our Launched product to see what a strategy-led repositioning actually looks like in practice.

The BCA probe will run its course. What you do with it in the meantime is entirely up to you.

Useful resources

Belgium Google ad probe 2026: what creative agencies must know