And unchecking that "show promotions" will stop it popping up adverts.

I don't have this issue, Impulse was fairly polite about it's installation. During install a great many programs that think they're the greatest thing since sliced bread want to run every time you start your machine.

Now, Rockstar Games Social Club, that's one I need to look into disabling   

If you are experiencing issues after you make changes, are you sure you don't have something like Spybot's TeaTimer running? Because if you do, and you're blocking changes to your startup configuration, you're doing it to yourself. I can't really think of much else that would stop the previous post from being applicable. 

***Edit*** Ahhh, I see a response from the Op. I've dealt with quite a few malware related issues, so I thought I might be of some assistance. Glad to see it's squared away.

[quote who="HozzMidnight" reply="5" id="2781730"]ImpulseNow does run at start up by default.  It also has desktop pop-up adds enabled by default.

Those should be opt-IN behaviors.
[/quote]

There is no legal requirement that it should be as far as I'm aware. It's a bespoke application you are downloading and installing having checked the EULA you are free to use it or not. They give you a simple way to opt out it's their design decision in this case to use an Opt-out ot Opt-in system.