There were problems searching audience, please contact the system administrator

In SharePoint 2010, when I tried to add/set Audience to the Navigation links, I kept getting the below error,

There were problems searching audience, please contact the system administrator

After spending some time in trouble shooting I noticed “User Profile Service Application Proxy” is not associated with the web application

Followed below steps to fix the issue,
Navigate to CA àManage Web Application
Select  “Web Application” that you are noticing the issues with the audiences.
In the Ribbon, Under Manage section click on “Service Connections”
Make sure that “User Profile Service Application Proxy” is checked by selecting custom.

After the above configuration step error disappeared and I was able to set the audiences to the Navigation links.