Is the web reverting back to 1999?

This is purely a rant… While doing exploratory research and goal setting for a client of mine. When I was asking them what “the current” goals / metrics for their campaign I was informed they were tracking the typical analytics. Search Traffic, Conversion Rates and Bounce Rates. But the one metric that threw me off was “Impressions”!?!

When talking about goals and metrics for SEO we often talk about Click Through Rates (CTR), Rankings, Traffic, and Bounce Rate, but never Impressions. Typcally Impressions are meant for Display Media or SEM (paid search) initiatives.

This would not be big deal if this was a isolated incident. Now I am hearing this as of late and seems to be the buzz word by my clients in late 2011. I am concerned that practitioners are preaching the impression metric. With the advancements of Google and Bing webmaster tools; it is easier to isolate this type of metric, but in my opinion this should not be considered a main goal / metric. If you are able to rank correctly for terms then impressions will follow as well as search referral traffic.

I am curious what your thougts are? Are impressions realy that relevant? Or is this just a bi-product or a micro-metric that show quick wins?

Thanks for reading!