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Welcome to the Common Ninja newsletter, your monthly roundup of product updates, widget ideas, fresh how-to guides, and key dates worth planning around.
Singles' Day (11.11) is next week, then Black Friday on 27 November and Cyber Monday on 30 November, so this issue is built around getting ready. There is a free Black Friday countdown you can share today, a holiday hours sign maker, a new Image Map widget, and a stack of new free tools. One more thing: we are preparing our own Black Friday deal too. Keep an eye on your inbox later this month.
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What shipped |
The latest from Common Ninja
- Free Black Friday countdown. A live Black Friday 2026 countdown that shows the time left in your visitor's own time zone. Open it full screen, or turn it into an image to tease your sale on social media. There are matching countdowns for Christmas, Hanukkah and New Year. Want the timer on your own site? The Countdown widget does that. Open the Black Friday countdown →
- New widget: Image Map. Turn any image into something visitors can explore. Draw clickable areas that follow the real shape of a room, a seating section or a product part, then give each one a tooltip and a link. Made for floor plans, venue maps, store layouts and product diagrams. See the Image Map widget →
- Holiday tools for the busy season. Print a holiday hours sign with the 2026 dates already filled in, make holiday bingo cards, run holiday trivia, or rank the best Thanksgiving food. All free, no sign-up. Browse all free tools →
- Six more free tools for everyday business. A Restaurant Menu Maker, a Now Hiring Sign Maker for seasonal staff, a Potluck Sign-Up Sheet, an Open House Sign-In Sheet, a Bar Graph Maker and a Venn Diagram Maker. Browse all free tools →
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Widget of the month |
Image Map
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From the blog |
Fresh reads and how-to guides
Updated for 2026: the widgets worth adding before Black Friday, and the dates to have them live by. Read the guide →How a countdown in your sale email builds real urgency, and how to set one up without it feeling pushy. Read the guide →Match the timer to the moment: launch, sale, event or deadline, with design choices for each. Read the guide →
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Trending in your world |
What we're reading lately
Shopify Shopify announced its Fall '26 Edition on 28 October. A new knowledge base in the admin lets merchants review and publish the facts AI agents get about their store, like return windows, shipping destinations and gift services, and nothing reaches an agent until the merchant publishes it. Worth a look before Black Friday, when more shoppers will ask an assistant before they ask you. Read the article →Shopify changelog Since 2 October, Shopify's Rollouts can schedule a discount and test an offer on a share of online store traffic. If you sell on Shopify, that means you can try two Black Friday offers on real visitors before the big weekend, instead of guessing which one works. Read the article →Google Search Central On 30 October Google said it will support a shared AI training control in robots.txt, one setting that tells participating AI companies whether they may train on your content. It is not live yet: Google aims to support it with other AI providers in 2027. Nothing to change today, but worth knowing the switch is coming. Read the article →
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Mark your calendar |
What's coming up
Opportunities to plan campaigns, content, and widgets around.
| Singles' Day (11.11) Born in China and now the biggest online shopping day in Asia, 11.11 is catching on everywhere as a one-day flash sale. Run a short offer with a Countdown that ends at midnight, and treat it as a rehearsal: you get to see which offer works two weeks before Black Friday. | | Thanksgiving (US) Many shops close or shorten hours, and customers check before they drive over. Print a holiday hours sign for the door, and post the same hours in a FAQ on your site. | | Black Friday The biggest shopping day of the year. Give your offer a real deadline with a Countdown, and make it fun with a Scratch Card or Spinning Wheel that reveals the discount. | | Small Business Saturday A day for shopping local. Put your best reviews where people decide, with Google Reviews or Testimonials, and show where everything is with an Image Map of your store. | | Cyber Monday The online follow-up to Black Friday. Point the same Countdown at midnight Monday so last-chance shoppers know exactly how long they have. |
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Tip of the month |
Let the countdown actually end
A timer that resets every time someone visits stops working the moment a shopper notices, and they do. Set your Black Friday countdown to the real end of the offer, and when it hits zero, end the sale.
See you next month,
Common Ninja
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