When a customer clicks on an item in your store directly from a Facebook/Instagram Shop product listing, they're redirected to a special URL that automatically prepares their cart before landing them on your store's checkout page. This guide explains how to connect your online store to Meta Catalog in just a few simple steps and how that URL is built.
Prerequisites
Before you start, please make sure you have a Meta Business Manager account.
Generate data source link
Access your Common Ground Backoffice.
Navigate to Preferences > External Services.
Activate the Enable Meta Catalog option & Copy
A unique link to your Common Ground meta catalog will be generated.
Click the Copy to clipboard button.
Add data source to Meta Catalog
Log in to your Meta Business Manager account.
Go to the Catalogs section.
Select your existing catalog or create a new one.
Click on Add items.
Choose the Data File option.
Paste the link copied from above and follow the on-screen instructions to finalize the import.
Note: Ensure that the data source link remains accessible and valid.
Product synchronization and updating
Your catalog will automatically synchronize according to the frequency defined by Meta.
Note: Pre order items can be synchronized. A Meta data link generated from Backoffice may take up to 24h to update.
What is this URL for?
Meta doesn't know your checkout system directly: when a customer buys from Facebook or Instagram, Meta generates a URL to your store that specifies which items are involved (and optionally a coupon code). your Eshop receives this URL, rebuilds the customer's cart with the correct items and prices, and then automatically redirects them to your standard checkout page, with the cart already filled in.
URL format
The URL follows this pattern:
https://yourstore.com/checkout-meta?products=ID:QUANTITY&coupon=CODEExample with a single item:
https://yourstore.com/checkout-meta?products=1234:1,5678:2The IDs used (1234, 5678) correspond to the numeric item ID from your catalog feed (the id column in the feed, referred to as item.id) — not the listing ID. Don't confuse the two: this references the actual product/copy in stock, not the customer-facing listing.
The URL may also appear percent-encoded (%3A for : and %2C for ,) — this works exactly the same way, as the system decodes it automatically.
What happens when a customer clicks
The customer lands on
/checkout-metawith the items in the URL.The system creates a checkout session, identified by a technical cookie (
checkout-id).The customer is automatically redirected to your store's standard checkout page, with their cart already filled in and priced.
This redirect page is intentionally excluded from search engine indexing (it should never show up in Google).
If something goes wrong (item not found, empty cart, service unavailable): the customer is never left stuck on an error page. They're automatically redirected back to your store's homepage.
Troubleshooting
If you encounter any errors :
Review the settings of your Meta catalog to identify problems.
Make sure your CSV file complies with Meta's format requirements.
Contact Meta Business Support if you still have problems.