Hi,
1) You are right. When there are tracking template and final URL at the same time, a user will go to the tracking template URL first before being redirected to the final URL.
2) You can use different domains for tracking template and final URL, such as using a third party service, which usually has different domain from yours, to track your users' accesses.
You may find this
page informative for what you are doing.
Cheers,
Thanet